"Those proposals and ideas, presented by friendly Russia, should, in its opinion, help bring together the stances of Syrians. However, they are only ideas and proposals, coming under the title 'Approaches to the political settlement of crisis in Syria,' and the discussion on such a level is of political nature. It does not entail any constitutional or legislative changes, unless Syrians themselves agree with the necessity to introduce the amendments to the constitution as part of a political settlement and a way to get the country out of the crisis," Abbas said in an interview to the Al Watan newspaper.
Matters related to adopting a constitution are a sovereign prerogative of Syrians, Abbas noted.
"The people of Syria are the only ones who adopt a constitution by a national agreement after its draft was developed by Syrian specialists," she said.
During the first round of intra-Syrian talks in Astana in January, Russia presented a draft new constitution of the country. By doing so, Russia opened a discussion on future constitution of Syria, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
The draft, proposed by Russia, was based on ideas from the Syrian government, opposition and local authorities. It included such changes as removing "Arab" from the republic’s name, removing army from political life, expanding parliamentary power and others.
The draft constitution was presented to the Syrian opposition in order to speed up the process of putting an end to the war in the country, Russia's envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentiev said in January.
