Ankara signaled Sunday that efforts to establish a constitutional committee in line with a political solution to the seven-year Syrian conflict envisaged in the Astana talks will intensify in the near future.
"We intensified our efforts for the establishment of a constitutional committee in Syria by revitalizing the Geneva process with the processes of Astana for a political solution. In the upcoming days, we will set up this constitutional committee and help bring civil society, the regime and the opposition together to draft a constitution for the country," Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said yesterday in a meeting organized by Istanbul's Beyoğlu municipality.
He underscored that Ankara has been taking the necessary measures to counter terrorist elements in Syria and exerting significant effort to maintain the Sochi agreement and the cease-fire in Syria's opposition-held northwestern province of Idlib.
So far 11 rounds of Astana talks have been held. The Astana guarantor countries, Turkey, Russia and Iran, are also expected to hold another Astana format talk on Feb. 14.
The first meeting of the Astana process was held in Turkey in January 2017 with the aim of bringing all warring parties in the Syrian conflict to the table to facilitate U.N. sponsored peace talks in Geneva. The talks support the establishment of the U.N.-backed constitutional committee in Syria to find a political solution. The planned constitutional committee will be tasked with carving out Syria's post-war constitution, which is seen as a stepping stone to elections in the war-torn country. Previously, Çavuşoğlu highlighted that there have been some minor disagreements on the lists prepared for establishing the constitutional committee.
