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HDP Party: UN Should Ensure All Ethnicities Take Part in New Syrian Constitution

The United Nations should boost efforts to ensure the presence of all ethnic groups in Syria’s constitutional commission, deputy chair of Turkey’s People’s Democratic Party (HDP) parliamentary group Filiz Kerestecioglu told Sputnik on Saturday.
Sputnik

"We don’t believe they [the UN] fully play their role also in presence of all these groups like Kurds in this assembly [constitution commission]. So they should continue their work regarding this," Kerestecioglu said.

The role of the United Nations is to settle the conflicts, so the organization should also bring all the ethnic groups to the commission, she reiterated.

"In our party we believe that all the nations that live in Syria — not only Kurdish community but all ethnic groups that live in Syria — should be a part of this decision [making] assembly [constitutional commission]," the politician said.

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External political interventions are not helping, and the future of Syria should be decided by Syrian people exclusively, she concluded.

iliz Kerestecioglu also told Sputnik on Saturday that Turkey’s People’s Democratic Party opposes military operations conducted by Ankara in Iraq and Syria.

"Of course, he [Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan] will continue this policy and it is not right. We have always said that we will never accept any war policy neither inside nor outside the country," Kerestecioglu said.

The lawmaker went on to urge Erdogan to refrain from using the war policy as a tool for consolidation of voters.

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"It is possible to follow a peace policy as well, not only in Turkey, but also in the Middle East and in every country in the world," Kerestecioglu underlined.

Moreover, the autocratic leaders also tend to use a terrorism narrative for political purposes, according to the lawmaker.

Turkish troops, in cooperation with Syrian opposition groups loyal to Ankara, have participated in a number of military operations in Syria, mostly against Kurdish militants, such as the ongoing Olive Branch operation in Afrin and the Euphrates Shield held from August 2016 to March 2017. Damascus has condemned the Turkish military operations, saying they violate Syrian sovereignty.

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The settlement of the Syrian conflict has been discussed on a number of international platforms, such as those in Geneva and Astana and the Syrian National Dialogue Congress in Russia's Sochi. The main result of the Sochi congress was the creation of the constitutional commission that would work in Geneva and focus on amending Syria's existing constitution.

The Syrian government and three groups of the Syrian opposition have already submitted their lists of candidates for the constitutional commission to the office of UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura.

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