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Turkey to continue support to political process in Syria

UN Secretary Generals’ Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersensaid earlier in the day that Syria’s constitutional committee would gather for its first meeting in Geneva on October 30

UNITED NATIONS, September 30. /TASS/. Turkey support the political process in Syria and the formation of the constitutional committee as its major stage, Turkey’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat Onal said on Monday.

"We support the idea that the political process should be the major task and be carried out by Syrians themselves," he said at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council on the situation in the Middle East. "The process’ success will largely depend on whether the international community and the United Nations would be able to create conditions for building trust between the Syrians."

He vowed that his country would continue to support the activities of United Nations Secretary Generals’ Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen.

"We will continue to do our best within the Astana format to make a contribution to ensuring measures of trust," he pledged.

Pedersen said earlier in the day that Syria’s constitutional committee would gather for its first meeting in Geneva on October 30.

The decision to set up a constitutional committee to work out recommendations on amendments to the Syrian constitution was passed at the Syrian National Dialogue Congress in Russia’s Sochi on January 31, 2018. Stafan de Mistura, Pedersen’s predecessor as the United Nations Secretary General’s Syria envoy, suggested that the committee was to be comprised of 150 people, i.e. 50 delegates from the Syrian government, 50 delegates from the opposition, and 50 delegates from civil society. Each group is to appoint 15 experts to gather for closed-door consultations in Geneva. On September 23, 2019, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres announced the establishment of the committee.

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