Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced a regular meeting of the Syrian Constitutional Committee scheduled for August.
"The situation in the region is tense. In Syria, we have been working with Russia and Iran for a long time, and everyone can see the results of this work. But we need to take concrete steps. The Constitutional Committee is scheduled to meet in August, " Cavusoglu said at a joint press conference with Iranian foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Ankara.
He added that Turkey was looking forward to the Astana Troika summit on Syria in Iran after a video conference of the leaders of the three countries.
Armed conflict has been ongoing in Syria since 2011. Negotiations in Nur-Sultan, known as the Astana format (after the former name of the capital of Kazakhstan), have been underway since 2017, and in January 2018, the Congress of the Syrian national dialogue was held in Sochi, which was the first attempt since the beginning of the conflict to gather a wide range of participants on one negotiating platform. The main result of the Congress was the decision to create a Constitutional Committee, which works in Geneva and whose main task is to prepare a constitutional reform.
The last round of meetings of the Constitutional Committee was held in Geneva at the end of November last year, but the meetings of the small group (which prepares the main initiatives) did not take place due to disagreements between the delegations.
In May, the permanent representative of the Russian Federation to the UN office in Geneva Gennady Gatilov said that an attempt to convene the constitutional Committee of Syria in Geneva would be made as soon as the situation with COVID-19 allows.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Russian Foreign Ministry
Based on materials from RIA Novosti