Loyalist newspaper Al-Watan explains Syrian political opposition figures invited to Russia's capital Moscow for meetings after news emerged of Russian plans to impose a new constitution on the rebel delegation at Astana.
The head of the Syrian opposition Moscow platform, Qadri Jamil, said that Russia confirmed during its meeting with the opposition that “constitutional ideas” which had been distributed by the Russians at the Astana meeting were “just ideas to be discussed among Syrians” and that Russia “was not trying to impose them and that the constitution is a Syrian issue.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday met with a number of Syrian opposition representatives in Moscow. According to a statement issued by the Russian Foreign Ministry, the meeting was joined by “Moscow platform” member and leader in the Popular Front for Change and Liberation, Qadri Jamil, and “Astana platform” member and head of the Movement for a Pluralistic Society, Randa Kassis, and two members of the “Cairo platform” Jihad Makdissi and Jamal Sleiman, as well as the general coordinator for the National Coordination Committee for the Forces of Democratic Change and member in the High Negotiations Committee, Hassan Abdel Azim, and head of the “Hemeimeem platform,” Elian Mesaad, and members of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, Khaled Eissa and Ali Abdul Salam, head of the Building the Syrian State Movement, Louay Hussein, and head of the Popular Will Party, Ala al-Din Arfaat.