The joint delegation of the Syrian Opposition Coalition (SOC) and the Syrian Negotiations Commission (SNC) to the United States met the Norwegian mission to the United Nations on the sidelines of the 76th session of the UN General Assembly. The two sides discussed the latest developments on the ground and in the political process in Syria.
The delegation included SOC’s Vice-president Ruba Habboush, Secretary of the political committee Abdul Majeed Barakat, member of the SOC’s political committee and Head of the SNC’s Foreign Relations Office Badr Jamous, and SNC’s member Fadwa Al-Ujaili.
The Norwegian side included Acting Director for the Ministry’s Middle East Section Iselin Haukaas, and First Secretary of the Norwegian Mission to the United NationsNini Pharo Halle.
The SOC and SNC’s joint delegation expressed their appreciation for the efforts that Norway made to issue UN Resolution 2585 on the cross-border entry of humanitarian aid. They made it clear that such resolution, while of great importance, cannot alone solve the issue of the Syrian people. They stressed that political solution remains the only solution that can end all the crises that the Syrian people are suffering from.
The joint delegation also made it clear that the current status of the work of the Constitutional Committee is not effective due to the Assad regime’s intransigence, obstructionism, and insistence on violence and military solution.
The joint delegation stressed that any support for the survival of Assad is an actual participation in the increasing number of victims and detainees and in the exacerbation of displacement. They called for preventing normalization with the Assad regime and not allowing the humanitarian issue to be used as a pretext for this normalization.
The joint delegation called for maintaining the sanctions imposed on the Assad regime, stressing that easing them would increase the regime’s intransigence. They called for taking concrete action in the issue of international accountability for the regime’s criminals and symbols.
For its part, the Norwegian mission spoke about its permanent communications with the UN and UN envoy Geir Pedersen in order to reach a political solution in Syria. They lamented the fact that UN Resolution 2254 is still not implemented and that the sixth session of the Constitutional Committee has not been held yet.
(Source: SOC’s Media Department)
