Outgoing United Nations special envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, has "broken off" his final round of talks in Damascus after government officials rejected any "foreign interference" in a proposed constitutional drafting committee, Syrian sources told Adnkronos on Thursday.
During talks with de Mistura, the officials insisted that two-thirds the members of the planned constitutional committee must be appointed by the Syrian government - not one-third as the UN envoy envisaged, the sources said.
"The Syrian constitution is a question of national sovereignty", Syria's foreign minister Walid al-Muallim declared after a meeting with de Mistura on Wednesday.
"It is up to the Syrian people to decide - without foreign interference," Muallim went on, adding: "the entire process must take place under Syrian leadership."
De Mistura is expected to brief the UN Security Council on Friday on the outcome of his talks in Damascus on Wednesday.
The Italian-Swedish diplomat announced last week he would resign for personal reasons after years of mediating inconclusive Syrian peace talks. But he said he hoped to broker an agreement on drafting a new constitution for Syria before stepping down in November.
De Mistura had proposed that one-third of the planned constitutional committee's members would be picked by the Syrian government, one-third by the Syrian opposition and one-third by the UN.
While there is agreement on the 50-member government and opposition delegations for the drafting committee, the government objects to a third 50-member delegation put forward by the UN that would contain Syrian experts, civil society, independents, tribal leaders and women, de Mistura told the UN Security Council last week.
De Mistura has been trying since February to create a constitutional committee as a key step toward elections and a political settlement to the more than seven-year Syrian civil war which has killed some 400,000 people.
