Anas Al-Abda: The basket of government and the transitional governing body are the core of the UN resolution (2254)

The head of the Syrian negotiating committee, Anas Al-Abda, said that the UN Resolution (2254) has a clear essence, which is the basket of governance and the transitional governing body, and this task was assigned to the UN envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, and it will be conducted according to the mandate granted to him by the Security Council.

Al-Abda emphasized that the basket of the transitional government is the nerve center of the decision, and it is very important in the implementation of the UN decision, and we are very concerned with the absence of talk about this basket in Pedersen’s briefing yesterday.

Al-Abda pointed out that “accepting to talk about the constitution now does not mean going beyond this main essence. There is no meaning for the constitution without a transitional government phase.”

Al-Abda added that the map of the Syrians’ efforts is clear (Resolution 2254), and Pedersen’s mission is to implement this map without missing any detail in it.

Al-Abda concluded “The transitional governing body, and with it transitional justice, are nerves that the United Nations and its envoy should not ignore, because that would mean diluting UN Resolution 2254 and diverting its path towards steps that serve the Assad regime.”

The UN special envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, said yesterday, Thursday, that the task of the Constitutional Committee is to reform the constitution and not write a new constitution, and here lies a major problem where one of the tasks of the Constitutional Committee is to write a new constitution for the country and not to amend it, which may include articles from the old constitution.

Pederson’s comments about the term “restorative justice” sparked a storm of harsh criticism from a number of activists as well as members of the constitutional committee.

Today, the Syrian Lawyers Association issued a special statement about Pedersen’s briefing, noting that the latter, through paragraph 21 of his briefing, mourned political transition through a “transitional governing body” and added, upon the request and approval of the non-constitutional committee, the term “restorative justice” instead of “transitional justice”.