Envoy says Syria has rejected UN plan on constitution committee

UNITED NATIONS: The outgoing UN special envoy to Syria told the Security Council on Friday that Damascus rejects the composition of a committee proposed by the world body to draw up a new constitution. Staffan de Mistura, who is due to step down in November, said Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem had rejected a central element of the committee, which the UN hopes could provide the basis for ending the seven-year civil war. The special envoy has been working since January on the make-up of a committee to thrash out a new constitution and which would have 150 members: 50 proposed by the Syrian regime, 50 by the opposition and 50 by the UN, to include representatives of civil society and technical experts. De Mistura said it was the last list of UN-proposed names that the Syrians had rejected during talks on Wednesday. “Walid Muallem didn’t accept a role for the UN in identifying or selecting a third list,” the Italian-Swedish diplomat told the Security Council by video conference during a session called for by the United States. “Rather, Mr Muallem indicated that the government of Syria and Russia had agreed recently that the three Astana guarantors (Russia, Iran and Turkey) and the Syrian government would in consultations among them prepare a proposal as regards the third list,” he said. He said Muallem asked that he withdraw the UN list he had submitted, something he said was only possible “if there was an agreement on a new credible, balanced and inclusive list” that complied with UN resolutions and commitments made in January talks in the Russian resort town of Sochi. Western powers, led by the United States, Britain and France, condemned Syria’s obstruction of the committee, which they said needed to be put together without delay. Muallem had already flagged Syria’s objections to the proposal when the latest talks with the UN envoy began on Wednesday, when the Syrian minister stressed that creating a new constitution must be a Syrian-led process and shunned “any foreign interference.” Aid convoy to Rukban camp postponed: A UN-led aid delivery, critically needed by thousands of civilians stranded in a camp on the Syrian-Jordanian border, has been postponed and will not arrive on Saturday as was expected by community leaders, a UN official said on Friday. “The planned joint UN-Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) humanitarian convoy to Rukban camp has been delayed for logistical and security reasons,” Fadwa Abed Rabou Baroud, a Damascus-based UN official, said. In the last three years, tens of thousands of people have fled to the camp from IS-held parts of Syria being targeted by Russian and US-led coalition air strikes. A siege earlier this month by the Syrian army and a block on aid by Jordan has depleted food at the camp in the Rukban area of southeast Syria. That has led to at least a dozen deaths in the past week among its more than 50,000 inhabitants, mainly women and children, residents and UN sources said. Rukban lies inside a “deconfliction zone” set up by US forces. Damascus says US troops are occupying Syrian territory and providing a safe haven for rebels. The United Nations office said it had received authorisation by the Syrian government to deliver the aid and confirmed preparations were being made for a convoy to desperate camp residents this week but did not give a date. Opposition insists Assad resign: Meanwhile, the leader of the Syrian opposition’s negotiation team insisted on Friday that President Bashar al Assad resign as a precondition for restoring peace in the war-torn country. “It is impossible for this person who has destroyed Syria, who is responsible for the deaths of many Syrians, to remain,” Naseral-Hariri told reporters in Moscow ahead of a meeting with Russia’s top diplomat. Russia, the main military backer of Syria’s leadership, has shifted its focus in recent months to facilitating a peaceful resolution to the Syrian civil war. “Russia is capable of facilitating dialogue to achieve a political resolution,” Al Hariri was quoted as saying in comments carried by Russian state news agency TASS. – Reuters/dpa