Lavrov: No Need to Rush Launch of Syrian Constitutional Committee

MOSCOW- Moscow can see no reason to rush the launch of a Syrian constitutional committee, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said following talks with his Slovak counterpart Miroslav Lajcak on Tuesday.

“We see no reasons to rush this process and artificially create some timeframes. Quality is everything in this case,” Lavrov said, according to Itar Tass.

He stressed that attempts to rush things often led to a failure in achieving the desired goals “and unreasonably escalated tensions.” “We continue working, our representatives, together with the Iranian and Turkish ones, maintain contact with all the interested parties, including our Syrian colleagues and United Nations officials, with whom they regularly meet,” the Russian foreign minister pointed out.

 The committee is supposed to include representatives of the Syrian government and opposition, as well as group of independent politicians.

The UN envoy, who earlier suggested that the committee should consist of no more than 50 members, plans to host a meeting of the committee in Geneva in the near future.

Once the committee issues recommendations on amending the Syrian constitution, a UN-sponsored general election will be held in the country, Tass said.

Russia and Syria coordinate efforts to help Syrian refugees return home

Lavrov also said that Russia is cooperating with the Syrian government to create suitable conditions which would help the Syrian refugees make a decision on returning home.

“We will continue seeking to ensure that the processes of creating conditions for the return of refugees develop more actively,” Russia’s top diplomat said. “Our military on the ground is making all efforts to help the Syrian authorities restore basic infrastructure, life support systems for citizens and we inform about those settlements where the conditions for return have been created and inform about this those countries where the refugees from Syria stay.”

H.M