Opposition Negotiating Committee: Normalizing the relations with Assad regime threatens the political process

The opposition “Syrian Negotiating Committee” considered that the attempts of some countries to normalize their relations with the Assad regime threaten the course of political process and the discussions of the next sixth round of the Syrian Constitutional Committee’s meetings, which will be held on October 18 in Geneva.

A spokesman for the “Negotiation Committee” and a member of the Constitutional Committee, Yahya Al-Aridi, said: “Attempts to normalize and restore relations with the Assad regime, and Russia’s efforts to recycle Assad, encourage the latter to procrastinate and evade the political process.”

Al-Aridi considered that the chances of achieving a breakthrough in the meetings of the next round of the Constitutional Committee remain possible, in light of the absence of any solution to the Syrian war except for a political solution.

For his part, committee member Bashar al-Haj doubted that there had been any change in the course of the talks after months of disruption, and that any progress had been made in the constitutional path during the past five rounds.

He added that what can be relied upon in the next round is an agreement between the delegations of the opposition and the Assad regime on the methodology of the round’s work, in which political and basic principles will be discussed.

Al-Hajj believed that the failure to achieve any breakthrough during the next round of the constitutional committee’s discussions would be considered a “big blow” to the course of the political process in the country.

Earlier, the United States welcomed setting the date of the sixth round of the Constitutional Committee meetings, and urged all parties to negotiate “in good faith.” There were also reports of “pressure exerted by Russia on the Assad regime to engage genuinely in the negotiations,” which led some to be optimistic. making progress in the next round.

It is noteworthy that the sixth round of the constitutional committee’s discussions will be held on the eighteenth of this month, after a months-long hiatus.