MOSCOW, October 4. /TASS/. Damascus will not discuss issues of stability in Syria at a meeting of the Constitutional Committee in Geneva, Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an interview with Russia’s Zvezda television channel posted on its website on Sunday.
"As for what is going on at the talks, they involve a party that is supported by the Syrian government because it expresses its point of view. There is another, non-Syrian, party that is comprised of those selected by Turkey. Turkey and those who are behind it, including the United States and its allies, are not interested in the productive work of the Constitutional Committee," he said.
"The demands they advance lead to the weakening and collapse of the state. As a matter of fact, this is what is happening in many other regions and countries where the United States is imposing constitutions entailing turmoil and chaos, rather than leading to stability. We reject such an approach. We will not discuss issues of stability in Syria," he stressed.
According to the Syrian president, the talks will yield results only when all the participating parties understand what the Syrian people, with all its groups and various political convictions, really wants. "I think the next rounds of talks will throw more light on these matters. The dialogue conducted by the Syrians will be successful but it will be doomed to failure in case of foreign interference," Assad said.
"Let us be frank. When, for instance, you speak about the ‘opposition,’ and you have it in your country, you speak about patriots who are part of the Russian people. If you, as a national of your country, see that this group of people or this concrete person have links with foreign special service, you won’t call them ‘opposition.’ I believe the opposition must be patriotic," he noted.
The Syrian president also stressed that Russia and Iran are playing a major role in these talks and are sparing no effort to achieve even partial progress. But this is a long and difficult process, he added.
United Nations Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen said in early September that the next meeting of the Syrian Constitutional Committee was planned for early October but its agenda had not yet been agreed.
The Syrian Constitutional Committee was set up under a resolution of the January 2018 Syrian National Dialogue Congress in Sochi. The committee is comprised of 150 delegates representing the Damascus government (50 delegates), the opposition (50 delegates), and civil society (50 delegates). The first meeting of the committee was held in Geneva on October 30, 2019. It formed an editorial group, which has held two sessions. The last one, held on November 29, ended to no avail as it failed to agree the agenda.