MOSCOW, November 25. /TASS/. There are many supporters of a change of government in Syria who would wish to disrupt the work of the Syrian Constitutional Committee, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said during a press conference on Monday.
"As for the threat of disruption, it always exists, as there are many supporters of those who wish for this process to fail in order to justify certain actions, namely, potential intensification of forceful intervention into Syrian affairs in order to carry through a regime change," he said.
Lavrov noted that the second session of the committee is currently under development. The foreign minister called on UN representatives to prevent any attempts to interfere in the work of the committee. "There is a threat of external interference, a threat that Syrian sides can have certain decisions imposed on them from overseas," he added. "Our colleagues from the UN, including the Secreatry-General and his Special Envoy for Syria [Geir] Pedersen are obliged to decisively foil such attempts."
On September 23, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced the establishment of the Syrian Constitutional Committee. The first session of the committee took place on October 30 in Geneva.
The decision to set up a constitutional committee was made during the Syrian National Dialogue Congress, held in the Russian resort city of Sochi on January 30, 2018. According to the plan proposed by former UN Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, the committee is made up of 150 people, 50 delegates to be fielded by Damascus, opposition and civil societies each. Each group is also obliged to name 15 experts to take part in meetings held in Geneva behind closed doors.