Detainees Syria sticking point

US CLAIM: CREMATORIUM CONCEALS MURDERS

UN proposes four-pronged solution to deadly Middle East conflict.

Syria’s government and opposition figures were expected to respond yesterday to a “surprise” UN proposal on mapping a way to a new constitution, the second day of renewed peace talks in Geneva.

The sixth round of UN-backed negotiations is the latest drive to bring a political solution to the conflict which has claimed more than 320 000 lives.

It began amid rising tensions over a US charge that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government was using a prison crematorium to hide evidence of thousands of murdered detainees.

UN envoy Staffan de Mistura twice on Tuesday met the Syrian government delegation and the opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC), with meetings at the UN headquarters running late into the evening.

Opposition members said their meetings focused on the issue of thousands of detainees still held in Syrian jails, as well as the drafting of a new constitution.

De Mistura presented the HNC with a document proposing a team of civil society activists and technocrats responsible for mapping a way forward to a draft constitution, two opposition sources told AFP.

The “consultative” team would begin work immediately on “specific options for constitutional drafting”, according to a copy of the proposal seen by AFP.

It would aim to “prevent a constitutional or legal vacuum at any point during the political transition process being negotiated”.

But the HNC’s Munzer Makhos said opposition figures had “many reservations” and were still discussing it. “It will become clear on Wednesday. This paper was a surprise – it was not expected in the first place,” he said.

The UN-backed talks are expected to focus on four separate “baskets”: governance, a new constitution, elections and combating “terrorism” in the war-ravaged country.

Hopes for a breakthrough remain dim.–