The Syrian Opposition Coalition’s (SOC) political committee held its periodic meeting to discuss the latest on the ground and political developments in Syria, as well as the course of the sixth session of the Constitutional Committee. Participants included SOC’s President Salem Al-Meslet, who spoke via a video link from Geneva, and several members of the General Assembly.
Al-Meslet gave an overview on the meetings he held in Geneva with officials and diplomats from the United States, Turkey and Qatar. He stressed the need to force the Assad regime and its backers to end their military escalation in northwestern Syria. He also stressed the need to activate the issue of accountability and step up international pressure to bring about a political transition in Syria in accordance with UN resolutions.
The committee discussed the grave violations that the Assad regime and its allied sectarian militias are committing in northwestern Syria. It also discussed the repercussions of the regime’s deadly attack that targeted the town of Ariha in rural Idlib on Wednesday. The attack killed and injured dozens of civilians, including children who were arriving for school.
Moreover, the committee discussed the paper that the Assad regime submitted on terrorism and extremism in the meetings of the Constitutional Committee in Geneva. Secretary of the political committee, Abdul Majeed Barakat, said that “the regime’s paper does not amount to being a legal text and does not have anything to do with constitutional drafting. He said that the Assad regime still deals with terrorism and extremism through its futile political vision that brought the country to its current situation. The paper showed that the Assad regime has not changed its behavior or mindset with the Syrian people or its vision of law and the constitution.
Barakat indicated that presenting this paper risks derailing the Constitutional Committee from its mandate as there is a special basket for discussing terrorism under UN Security Council resolution 2254. He pointed out that the regime’s only goal is to procrastinate and waste time, as it has been doing since the beginning of the meetings of the Constitutional Committee.
SOC’s Vice-president Abdulahad Astepho also gave an overview on the sixth session of the Constitutional Committee, the preparations to launch the political campaign on the Interpol’s decision to reopen its office in Damascus, and the meeting that was held with the political committee in al-Hasaka.
Vice-president Abdel Hakim Bashar also talked about his visit to Erbil last week and the meetings he held there with officials in the region. He also highlighted the problems facing education in the Syrian refugee camps in the region.
Vice-president Ruba Habboush presented a report on the preparations being made by the Syrian Women’s Commission for its activities during the next two months.
Head of the National Dialogue Committee, Abdul Ilah Fahd, talked about the activities and meetings that the committee is conducting with the armed opposition groups in in the liberated areas, as well as with the associations of the people displaced from Homs, Dara’a, Deir Ezzor, and Aleppo Bar Association. He said that the meetings mainly focused on the problems facing education and the developments in the work of the Constitutional Committee.
Participants also reviewed a report on the political, regional and international developments and their impact on the situation in Syria, as well as a report by the Syrian National Army on the field and military situation.
(Source: SOC’s Media Department)
