A long-awaited national dialogue conference intended to help chart Syria’s political future after the fall of former President Bashar Assad is set to begin Monday.
The main session will be held on Tuesday, with participants holding workshops to discuss transitional justice, the structure of a new constitution, reforming and building institutions, personal freedoms, the role of civil society and the country’s economy.
The outcome of the national dialogue will be nonbinding recommendations to the country’s new leaders.
Plans for the conference — which had been promised by the country’s new authorities in the immediate aftermath of Assad’s fall in a lightning rebel offensive in December — had been in flux up until the last minute. The date of the conference was announced on Sunday, one day before it was to start.
Two days before that announcement, Hassan al-Daghim, spokesperson for the committee organizing the national dialogue, had said the date of the conference had not been set and the timing was “up for discussion by the citizens.” He also said the number of participants had not been determined yet and might range from 400 to 1,000.
It was not clear Monday what the final number would be or how the invited participants had been selected.
The committee said Sunday that it had held more than 30 meetings across Syria’s provinces in which some 4,000 people participated in the runup to the conference “to ensure the representation of various components of Syrian society,” state-run news agency SANA reported.
It said participants had repeatedly called for a temporary constitutional declaration, an economic plan, the restructuring of government sectors, involving citizens in the management of institutions, and enhancing security and stability.
After Assad was toppled, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, the main former rebel group now in control of Syria, set up an interim administration comprising mainly members of its “salvation government” that had ruled in northwestern Syria.
They said at the time that a new government would be formed through an inclusive process by March. In January, former HTS leader Ahmad al-Sharaa was named Syria’s interim president after a meeting of most of the country’s former rebel factions. The groups agreed to dissolve the country’s constitution, the former national army, security service and official political parties.
The armed groups present at the meetings also agreed to dissolve themselves and for their members to be absorbed into the new national army and security forces. Notably absent was the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which holds sway in northeastern Syria and which has not been invited to participate in the national dialogue.
