Damascus handed Moscow, Iran and United Nations envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, a list of candidates to a committee tasked with reviewing the Syrian Constitution.
The development signaled a possible dispute over the powers of the Syrian president because the majority of the figures named on the list refuse to address the issue.
The handing of the list goes in line with a meeting held two weeks ago between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian regime leader Bashar Assad in the Russian resort city of Sochi
The list, composed of 50 candidates, must include regime supporters, opposition members and independents.
However, western diplomats revealed that the list delivered by Damascus mainly contained officials from the ruling Baath party, in addition to lawmakers from parliament.
According to a copy of the list, Damascus named members of a regime delegation attending peace talks in Geneva, except head of the delegation Bashar al-Jaafari.
Among the names are MP Ahmed Al-Kuzbari, legal advisor Ahmed Arnous, Amjad Issa and Amal Yazigi.
The list also contains the names of Baath officials, including Safwan Al-Kurbi, Khaled Khazaal, Radwan Ibrahim, Sherin al-Youssef, Maha al-Ojeili, Hassan al-Atrash, Turki Hassan, Moussa Abdel-Nour, in addition to former Deputy Information Minister Taleb Qadi Amin and television presenter Raida Waqqaf and writer Anissa Abboud.
Earlier, Syria’s news agency SANA quoted the Syrian Foreign Ministry as saying it has sent the list of the regime’s delegation for the U.N.-backed constitutional committee to the Russian and Iranian ambassadors to Syria.
De Mistura’s spokesperson Michael Conte said the U.N. envoy’s office had received the Syrian list.
“At this stage, we will carefully study the list of names,” he said.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
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