By the Gazette Editorial Board THE visit that a delegation representing the Syrian High Negotiations Committee (HNC) paid to Cairo last week and the talks it held with Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri point to Egypt's keenness on contributing effectively to the furtherance of the chances for reaching a political solution to the crisis which has caused a lot of instability in the regional scene and untold humanitarian sufferings to the Syrian people. In addition to the awesome death toll, estimated by one Syrian monitoring group to have reached nearly 511,000 by March this year, Syria remained the country with the world's highest forcibly displaced population in 2017 with 12.6 million at the year's end, according to the UNHCR Global Trends Report. Some 6.3 million of these are refugees, 146,700 are asylum-seekers and 6.2 million are internally displaced persons — quite a frightening picture of the grave humanitarian consequences of the Syrian crisis remaining so far unsolved. In the face of this crisis, Egypt firmly and justifiably believes that only a political solution based upon maintaining Syria's sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity and preserving its national institutions can bring the country back to normal. While it served as an opportunity for the Syrian delegation to get apprised of Cairo's reappraisal of the ongoing developments, the timing was also important, as so Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Abu Zaid indicated in statements to a private TV channel last Thursday, given that it took place when moves are under way to form the committee which will negotiate the writing of a constitution under the auspices of the United Nations as so provided for under UNSC Resolution 2254 of the year 2015. Recent reports from Geneva indicate that UN Special Envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistrua, is currently endeavouring to put in place a Syrian-owned, Syrian-led and UN-facilitated constitutional committee. In acknowledgement of Egypt's policy stance of lending full support to all efforts aimed at reaching a political solution to the crisis in Syria, the UN envoy emphasised in a statement from Geneva on June 14 following a visit to Cairo that he "particularly valued the counsel and insights of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi during the in-depth discussion on this point which he had had with him." And in the course of the talks with the visiting Syrian delegation, Minister Shoukri renewed Egypt's keenness to push forward the endeavours to achieve a political solution in Syria, noting in this context that Egypt keeps coordinating with Syrian, regional and international parties in the direction of finding such a political solution and also to back up relevant UN efforts. It is therefore hoped that the formation of the constitutional committee will be a step towards full implementation of UNSC Resolutions 2254 and the relevant frameworks for a solution, including the Geneva I Communiqué.
