On December 19, the Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation for the Middle East and African Countries, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Mikhail Leonidovich Bogdanov received the representative of the leadership of the Syrian opposition Front for Change and Liberation, the head of the Moscow Platform of the Syrian opposition Kadri Jamil.

It has become possible, to a considerable extent, to deal with the exchange rate of the Syrian pound not only as an economic indicator but also political in essence. Although in the past few days have witnessed what appears to be fragile stability at a new rate of exchange around 850 Syrian pounds per dollar, but the experience and the political situation itself confirm that this stability is only an anchor of a new platform for further deterioration, assuming the political situation continues to be in the same current catastrophic state.

The UN Special Envoy for Syria, Mr. Geir O. Pedersen, during his participation in the 14th round of the Astana discussions Today (Tuesday, December 10, 2019), considered that the final decision whether or not to transfer the sessions of the Syrian Constitutional Committee to Damascus “belongs to the Syrians themselves”.

After the complete failure of the second round of works of the Small Body of the Syrian Constitutional Committee (SCC), it appeared clearly how vital and necessary is the proposal presented by Moscow Platform since the first inaugural session of the SCC; the proposal that says of the necessity of transferring the work of the SCC to Damascus, in conjunction with the provision of the necessary guarantees under the supervision of the United Nations.

Last Friday, November 29, the second round of the Small Body of the Syrian Constitutional Committee (SCC) ended without any meeting of its 45 members. The round was limited to fruitless polemics on the agenda, in parallel with mutual accusations, suggesting, only formally, to return to the same atmosphere of the previous Geneva rounds, which were dominated by extremists on both sides, their mentality and their propositions.

The collapse of the already precarious living situation of the overwhelming majority of Syrians has accelerated in the past two weeks. The catastrophic collapse of the Syrian pound is one of the important indicators of this collapse, which is a direct result of the delay in serious engagement in the process of political solution, a delay that deepens the Syrian humanitarian tragedy and worsens the bleeding Syrian wound, threatening to re-open the doors to all dangerous possibilities for the people and the country.

The second session of the Small Body of the Syrian Constitutional Committee begins in Geneva on Monday, November 25, after it passed its first exam during the first session, achieving some ice-breaking, and opening the door towards a real start of the political process of full implementation of the UNSCR 2254, despite a number of provocative statements and actions, through which extremists parties - formally contradictory and fundamentally consistent - are attempting to sabotage the work of this committee and downplay it.

The exchange rate of the Syrian pound against foreign currencies continues to deteriorate, it reached an unprecedented level during the past two weeks, exceeding the ceiling of 700 Syrian pounds per US dollar. This reflects further deterioration in the living conditions of the vast majority of Syrians (85% of Syrians live in absolute poverty), and this deepens the Syrian tragedy and wounds in a disastrous way, with great risks at various levels.

In parallel to the start of the work of the Small Body of the Syrian Constitutional Committee in Geneva, Washington has launched three attitudes related to Syria; the first is to retreat from the total withdrawal and stay in the area of Syrian oil fields. The second is related to Idlib and US pressure to prevent elimination of Al-Nusra Front in Idlib. The third is also related to the northern part of Syria, where USA pushes to impede understanding and dialogue between the north-east forces in Syria and the Syrian government.

On November 6, 2019, Mikhail Bogdanov, Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation for the Middle East and African Countries, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia received the representative of the leadership of the Syrian opposition Front for Change and Liberation, Head of Moscow Platform of Syrian opposition, Kadri Jamil.