Syrian government delegation submits modifications to UN paper

Syrian government delegation head Bashar Al-Jaafari said Monday that he and UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan De Mistura discussed modifications made to a UN paper submitted in the earlier stages of talks striving to broker a political end to the Syrian conflict.

"Today we submitted constitutional amendments to the paper that was submitted to us by the special envoy and we consider such amendments to be an integral part of this paper," Al-Jaafari said.

The changes are believed to reflect at least in part the government's desire to set up a broad-based national unity government.

Though the main opposition faction represented by the High Negotiations Committee (HNC) withdrew from formal proximity talks last week, UN-mediated negotiations are pushing on in a bid to make tangible progress by Wednesday.

This may prove difficult, however, given the deep-seated differences dividing factions at war since 2011 and the fact that the HNC pulled out from formal talks having accused the regime of avoiding the issue of political transition amid a worsening humanitarian and security situation on the ground.

While the Syrian government seeks to establish a broad-based national unity government to include members who reject terrorism as well as opponents in the national opposition who are not subject to foreign agendas, the HNC backs the creation of a transitional governing body with full executive powers which has no place for incumbent Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The question of terrorism remains particularly controversial, with Al-Jaafari insisting that some of the groups represented by the HNC are in fact terrorists.

He blamed recent attacks in Aleppo and Damascus on two groups in particular, Ahrar ash-Sham and Jaysh al-Islam.

"The government of Syria has sent two identical messages to the Secretary General and the president of the Security Council to clarify the situation and asked the Security Council to take immediate measures to help the government fight terrorism in accordance with relevant Security resolutions," he said.

"In all honesty the escalation of terrorism in Syria has a political background through foreign intervention," Al-Jaafari added.

The Syrian government delegation is scheduled to meet again with the UN envoy on Tuesday.

Source: XINHUA