{"id":44176,"date":"2020-10-29T04:22:48","date_gmt":"2020-10-29T04:22:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=44176"},"modified":"2020-10-29T04:22:48","modified_gmt":"2020-10-29T04:22:48","slug":"us-accuses-syria-of-delaying-constitution-ahead-of-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=44176","title":{"rendered":"US accuses Syria of delaying constitution ahead of election"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nNEW YORK:\u00a0The US and several Western allies on Tuesday accused the Syrian regime of deliberately delaying the drafting of a new constitution to waste time until presidential elections in 2021, and avoid UN-supervised voting as called for by the UN Security Council.<\/p>\n

\nUS Deputy Ambassador Richard Mills urged the Security Council to \u201cdo everything in its power\u201d to prevent Bashar Assad regime from blocking agreement on a new constitution in 2020. The Trump administration believes Assad\u2019s hope is to \u201cinvalidate the work\u201d of UN special envoy Geir Pedersen who has been trying to spearhead action on a constitution, and the council\u2019s call for a political transition.<\/p>\n

\nThe Security Council resolution adopted in December 2015 unanimously endorsed a road map to peace in Syria that was approved in Geneva on June 30, 2012 by representatives of the UN, Arab League, EU, Turkey and all five permanent Security Council members \u2014 the US, Russia, China, France and Britain.<\/p>\n

\nIt calls for a Syrian-led political process starting with the establishment of a transitional governing body, followed by the drafting of a new constitution and ending with UN-supervised elections. The resolution says the free and fair elections should meet \u201cthe highest international standards\u201d of transparency and accountability, with all Syrians \u2014 including members of the diaspora \u2014 eligible to participate.<\/p>\n

\nAt a Russian-hosted Syrian peace conference in January 2018, an agreement was reached to form a 150-member committee to draft a new constitution. That took until September 2019, and since then only three meetings have been held with little progress.<\/p>\n

\nPedersen, the UN envoy, told the Security Council on Tuesday he was unable to convene a fourth meeting in October because the government wouldn\u2019t accept a compromise agenda which the opposition agreed to. During his just concluded visit to Damascus, he said there was \u201csome valuable narrowing of the differences\u201d that could enable consensus on agendas for the next two meetings.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIf we are able to find agreement in the next two days, it should be possible to meet in Geneva sometime in the month of November,\u201d Pedersen said, dropping the Nov. 23 date in his prepared speech.<\/p>\n

\nMills, the US envoy, urged Pedersen \u201cto take any measures he thinks are appropriate to facilitate the parties\u2019 efforts … and also to identify to the council who is blocking progress.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\u201cSyria is wholly unprepared to carry out elections in a free, fair and transparent manner that would include the participation of the Syrian diaspora,\u201d Mills said. \u201cThis is why we need the constitutional committee to work, and why we need the UN to accelerate its planning to ensure Syria\u2019s upcoming elections are credible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nGerman Ambassador Christoph Heusgen called Assad\u2019s \u201cdelaying and obstruction tactics\u201d on the constitutional committee\u2019s work \u201cjust detestable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nHe said Russia, Syria\u2019s most important ally, \u201cshould finally use its influence by, for instance, just cutting military aid and stopping its support, so that the Syrian regime finally plays ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nSyria\u2019s tactics are clear, Heusgen said. \u201cThey want to waste time until the presidential elections in 2021. The regime should not have any illusions. The elections will not be recognized if they are held under the present circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nFrench Ambassador Nicolas De Riviere also criticized Assad\u2019s \u201crefusal to engage in good faith\u201d and called for preparations to begin for UN-supervised elections that include the diaspora. France won\u2019t recognize results that don\u2019t comply with these provisions, he said, stressing: \u201cWe will not be fooled by the regime\u2019s attempts to legitimize itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nRussia\u2019s ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, made no mention of the April presidential election and countered that Syrians must have \u201cthe opportunity to negotiate without interference from the outside.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe work of the constitutional committee should not be subject to any deadlines,\u201d he said, expressing hope that Pedersen\u2019s mediation will enable the committee\u2019s work to continue \u201cin line with the agenda agreed by the Syrians.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nRussia also sparred with Western ambassadors over its veto threats that led to the closure of two border crossings to deliver aid to Syria \u2014 one in the northeast and one in the northwest \u2014 leaving only one crossing to Idlib in the northwest.<\/p>\n

\nThe US, Germany, France, Britain, Belgium and others criticized the border crossing closures.<\/p>\n

\nUN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock told the council that Syrian government deliveries across conflict lines to the northeast are \u201cnot delivering at the scale or frequency required to meet the current health needs.\u201d He said one hospital received only 450 gowns in April, and another received nothing for its maternity wing.<\/p>\n

\nLowcock also said \u201cthe situation of families across Syria is truly desperate,\u201d citing food prices more than 90 percent higher than six months ago.<\/p>\n

\nRussia\u2019s Nebenzia responded, noting \u201cwith satisfaction the progress in UN humanitarian deliveries from inside Syria including through cross-line routes,\u201d saying this \u201cproves\u201d the government is providing aid to people including in areas not under its control.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK:\u00a0The US and several Western allies on Tuesday accused the Syrian regime of deliberately delaying the drafting of a new constitution to waste time until presidential elections in 2021, and avoid UN-supervised voting as called for by the UN Security Council. US Deputy Ambassador Richard Mills urged the Security Council to \u201cdo everything in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spotlight_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44176\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}