“The Constitutional Committee cannot be successful without the involvement of the Autonomous Administration”, said Hemdan El Ebid, co-chair of the Executive Council of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.
After the 2018 Syrian peace conference in Sochi, new Syrian constitutional talks were held at the United Nations (UN) in Geneva this week.
The Syrian Constitutional Committee seeks to end the conflict and find a path to peace under a UN-supervised peace process. However, UN-mediated peace talks have so far failed to end a war that is entering its 11th year.
The Syrian Constitutional Committee under UN mediation was agreed in 2018 at a Russia-hosted Syrian peace conference in Sochi. The 150-member committee has been trying to create a new constitution ever since. However, Syria’s Autonomous Administration, which controls North and East Syria, was not involved in the peace talks at the insistence of Turkey. According to local media, the Autonomous Administration will therefore not see the committee’s work as binding.
Hemdan Al Ebib told Hawar News that the committee, which does not include the Autonomous Administration, will not be successful. Committee decisions do not serve the Syrian people because they are not fully represented in the committee, Ebid said, adding, “Peace talks in Geneva, Astana and Sochi are a waste of time. They caused Syria to become a space for Jabhet Al-Nusra and ISIS gangs”.
‘The third way’
”The Autonomous Administration has adopted the third way to solve the Syrian crisis”, said Ebid. “The Autonomous Administration has been calling for Syria’s territorial unity from the beginning. The Syrian population should call for democratic elections, returning the refugees to their homelands and rebuilding the infrastructure”. He added, ”A Syrian constitution should be written in which the rights of all Syrian citizens will be guaranteed”.
