UPDATE - Syrian Opposition Wants Presidential Powers To Change - Head Of Delegation In Astana

MOSCOW/ASTANA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 29th November, 2018) The Syrian opposition wants the powers of the country's president to be changed by the new constitution which is set to be drafted after the formation of the constitutional committee, Ahmad Tomah, the head of the Syrian opposition's delegation at the Astana talks on the Syrian settlement, told Sputnik.

The new round of the reconciliation talks began in the Kazakh capital on Wednesday and is set to finish later on Thursday.

"The international community knows that these absolute powers, which some call super-presidential, have been one of the reasons behind of the eruption of the Syrian crisis ... We have supported the creation of the constitutional committee because, due to the constitutional reform and ensuring the calm and neutral atmosphere in Syria, the situation in the country will change and you will be sure that you will be able to vote at the elections which guarantee transparency and the transition of power," Tomah said.

Tomah suggested that the Syrian constitutional committee would have two functions.

"First, 45 people will be elected, including 15 people from each of the [three] lists. This will be the committee on the creation of the constitution. The rest of 150 people will form the general secretariat. The importance of it should not be underestimated. It will possibly be in charge of making the main decisions and legitimizing the constitution," Tomah explained.

It was still unclear if the constitutional reform would need to be approved only by the general secretariat or if it would require the plebiscite, Tomah argued.

Notably, Tomah called the Astana process on the Syrian settlement "the only [process] which is currently effective in the light of the shutdown of other [formats of talks.]"

The Syrian opposition figure argued that the idea to hold the Syrian National Dialogue Congress, which had lain the foundation for the constitutional committee creation, and the Russian-Turkish agreement on a demilitarized zone in Syria's Idlib were the most important achievements of the Astana process.

On September 17, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed to set up a demilitarized zone in Idlib along the contact line of the armed opposition and the government forces by October 15. However, the creation of the demilitarized zone has not been completed yet due to provocations on the part of terrorists operating in Idlib.

In October, UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said he will step down due to personal reasons in late November. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres subsequently appointed Geir Pedersen the new envoy for Syria.

Tomah expressed hope for the progress in the formation of the Syrian constitutional committee to be achieved under de Mistura, suggesting that Pedersen would need additional time to get familiar with the whole case.

The opposition figure recalled that such a situation took place in 2014 after de Mistura replaced Lakhdar Brahimi as the UN special envoy.

The idea to set up the committee which would be in charge of rewriting the Syrian main law, in a bid to settle the years-long conflict in the middle Eastern country, was first agreed upon at the Syrian National Dialogue Congress in Russia's Sochi in January.

In October, the leaders of France, Germany, Russia and Turkey issued a joint statement calling for the committee to convene by the end of this year.

The representatives of Iran, Russia and Turkey, which are the Syrian truce guarantor states, have agreed upon the lists of the committee participants from the opposition and the government. However, the composition of the third part of the body, which is set to comprise civil society representatives, has been a stumbling block in the negotiations.