Anas al-Abdah, the President of the Syrian Negotiation Committee, has recently revealed the details of the online meeting with the new US Special Representative for Syria Engagement, Aimee Cutrona.
The meeting focused on the need to put pressure on the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to engage seriously in the political process and the upcoming presidential elections in Syria.
“I made it clear during my meeting with Cutrona, that a mechanism should be put in place for the implementation of the UN Resolution 2254, and to drive the work of the Constitutional Committee based on the requests contained in our letter to the UN Security Council,” Abdah said in a statement on Friday.
He stressed the need to “achieve rapid progress regarding the issue of the detainees that the regime evades by all means.”
“During the meeting, in which Hadi al-Bahra, co-chair of the Constitutional Committee participated, I stressed the importance of the transitional governing agenda, and the need to activate it,” Abdah added.
He called for “tightening the sanctions that target the figures and supporters of the regime, in order to put more pressure on it, in addition to the importance of having a clear international position regarding the fake and illegal elections that the regime is preparing to hold in areas under its control.”
A source from the Syrian opposition, who preferred not to be named, told North Press, “the communication is more introductory than practical, meaning that it is too early to talk about anything before the new US administration reveals its approach to deal with the Syrian crisis.”
He pointed out that the Syrian crisis is subjected to “study and reassessment by the American administration.”
The meeting comes in the context of the US State Department’s endeavor, “to hold the Syrian crisis away from the influence of the Pentagon and the CIA, whose approach is different,” according to the source.
He pointed out that the issue of the political process and the constitutional committee “remains trapped.”
The source commented on the failure of the fifth round of the Constitutional Committee, saying “this indicates the conflict between Russia, Iran and the UN, which shows the weakness of the latter and threatens to collapse its process.”
Based on that threat, the UN sent its special envoy to Astana “in an attempt to link it with Geneva and save its course,” according to him.
On February 10, the Syrian Negotiation Committee sent a letter to the presidency of the UN Security Council to distribute it to the 15 members of the council before it closed its session on Syria.
The letter stressed that the regime is the main and the only obstruction to the political process, asking the UN Security Council to push for the implementation of Resolution 2254 with all its entitlements.
This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
