September 12, 2018 - 12:04 AMT
Syrian Constitutional Commission candidates agreed in Geneva

A technical commission will be created to speed up the process of approving candidates for the Syrian Constitutional Commission, stated the Russian President’s special representative for Syria Alexander Lavrentyev in Geneva on Tuesday, September 11, according to Al-Masdar News.

Speaking to the journalists at the Russian mission in Geneva, Lavrentyev announced that representatives of the three guarantor states Russia, Turkey and Iran, during the meeting with the UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura on Tuesday “agreed in principal” on the two lists of candidates to the Syrian constitutional committee – one from the government and the other from the opposition.

Russian diplomats added that the proposed technical group of experts would study candidates from the civil society list, noting that the third list was considered a “quite sensitive” issue and that “hasty moves” that could break the forming balance should not be made.

Lavrentyev expressed his hope that representatives of the three guarantor states could convene again in Geneva within a month after all the remaining questions were discussed and prepared on an expert level.

Earlier on Tuesday, the UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura and representatives of the three guarantor states Russia, Turkey and Iran held a quadrilateral session at the Palais des Nations, the UN Geneva office, to discuss the formation of the Syrian Constitutional Commission and the situation in Idlib. The guarantor states handed over to the United Nations a list comprising Names of 150 candidates, representatives from the Syrian government, opposition, and civil society.

On Friday, de Mistura will meet with officials from Egypt, France, Germany, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, UK, US, EU and Arab league.