Committee set up to reform Syrian constitution after Sochi talks

The Russian-hosted conference on reaching peace in Syria has set up a 150-member committee to discuss changes to the existing Syrian constitution, participants said on Tuesday.

Participants at the Syrian Congress of National Dialogue conference in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi called for the respect of the country's territorial integrity and said the Syrian people alone should decide the shape of their government, according to a final statement.

The statement said the participants had agreed on "basic principles" deemed essential for saving Syria after nearly seven years of civil war and endorsed a "democratic" path for the country through elections. 

But it made no mention of Assad.

Syrian peace talks in Sochi organised by Turkey, Iran and Russia as part of the Syrian National Dialogue Congress, and its main purpose is to find a political solution to the conflict in Syria.

The conference on reaching peace in Syria agreed to create constitutional committee which will work in Geneva, TASS news agency cited Russia's Foreign Ministry Sergey Lavrov as saying on Tuesday.

The committee will include those groups that were not attending the peace conference hold in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi, Lavrov said.

TRT World's Andrew Hopkins reports the latest from Sochi. 

The congress is being attended by all sectors of Syrian society, other than groups that are considered to be terrorist organisations.

The UN announced the participation of its special envoy to Syria this past weekend, Staffan de Mistura, who arrived on Monday in Sochi.

In addition to de Mistura, representatives from Iran, Russia and Turkey are set to hold consultations.

The Syrian opposition's Higher Negotiation Committee (HNC), however, announced on Saturday that it would not take part in the meeting.

"We stayed in the airport, refusing to enter under the flag of the Syrian regime. That's why the delegation decided to not participate in the Sochi conference, boycott it and return to Ankara, while the Turkish delegation will stay in Sochi, representing our demands and working to achieve them." said Ahmad Tuma, Head of Syrian Opposition Delegation.

Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan and Kazakhstan are among the countries that were invited as observers.

Earlier, Moscow had said that 1,600 invitations had been sent. The Syrian regime confirmed the participation of a delegation of 680 people, while the Syrian opposition was to be represented by 400 participants.

Nine rounds of UN peace talks between the warring sides have made little progress towards ending the civil war in which hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, with 11 million - a majority of the Syrian population - being driven from their homes.

Syrians in the capital Damascus have expressed hope that the conference will bring a political resolution for Syria.