I would like, at the beginning of my speech, to remember all those who died during the past nine years, and to address all Syrian women and men wherever they are, so that we can begin our difficult dialogue.

Distinguished Co-Chairs,

Dear colleagues and committee members,

Ladies and gentlemen, the United Nations team, led by the distinguished Mr. Geir Pedersen,

The war in Syria has destroyed most of the development assets and resources it has accumulated since its independence. It may not be useful to go into the reasons, for that is another discussion.

Today, we are required to affirm what unites us as citizens with equal rights and responsibilities and to agree on a social contract that brings us together. This work has basic starting points that I will present sequentially from a neutral and independent personal perspective:

⁃ First: The necessity of recognizing pluralism: None of us can monopolize the representation of the Syrian people. There are more than 25 million Syrians, men and women from whom we have not received an official mandate to be here, and we must remember every single one of them and remember their interests and fears. We are dealing with an foundational text that we hope will open the door to all. In the future, they can exercise their right, and we can create the opportunity to rebuild the trust that was shattered by the war between them.

⁃ Second: Syria must be a strong, sovereign state that is managed according to a reason of state through institutions subject to the rule of law and capable of pooling resources, making decisions, and providing services.

⁃ Third: The rule of law does not only mean that the government and its institutions of all types are subject to the law, which must be guaranteed by an independent judiciary, but it must also activate monitoring and societal involvement at all levels. The people are not an abstract idea that we return to to seek legitimacy in elections. Rather, society, with all its spectrums, resources, civil and political entities, and energies, must be a partner in governance and law-making.

⁃ Fourth: We must look forward to pave the way for future generations towards a promising shared life. This does not negate dealing with the past and present, but the future must be the moral center that will bring us together.

⁃ Fifth: We must build a fair political economy that involves everyone in the reconstruction process in a reconciliatory manner that can activate the resources of all Syrian men and women at home and in the diaspora.

⁃ Sixth: This requires, on the one hand, working to produce local development vectors and networking them horizontally and vertically, ensuring that localities have the authority to make decisions on their vital issues according to national foundations to ensure the country’s economic and institutional unity, and on the other hand, subjecting the calibration between financial and monetary policies to broad societal consensus in a way that prevents marginalizing some groups at the expense of other ones under the pretext of reconstruction.

⁃ Seventh: Applying and respecting international law in all fields, starting from protecting the unity of Syria’s land and people, all the way to human rights, the rights of women in all their diversity, the rights of people with disabilities, and the voluntary and safe return of people to their homes, property, and means of livelihood.

Honorable Chairmen of the Committee, Colleagues:

We will face many challenges in our work, the most important of which is that none of us will be able to achieve a sufficient majority to approve everything we desire if we continue to work as separate blocs, which will hinder decision-making mechanisms, and we will not reach comprehensive consensus except rarely. Therefore, we will have to build our dialogue with each other as 150 members under one roof, with our diverse experiences and the active and ongoing roles of each of us, even if they differ. Each of us is responsible with the others in research and investigation to derive consensus on the mechanisms of coexistence.

We must inscribe into the text that we will produce the basics necessary for this livelihood: guarantees of rights and equal opportunities - the rules of the political process - and ensure that politics is subject to the law and ensure that the production of law in the future will be within a free and equal inclusive environment to avoid the return of violence. We will have to leave what is disputed over for future negotiation of political life, in order to manage our differences, not to perpetuate our conflict.

Stopping the war is a responsibility of all of us. The constitution is not the end of the road, but rather its beginning. During my quick speech, there will be three Syrians who have died as a result of violence, disease, or malnutrition. They will join the statistics as numbers without name or identity. These words of mine cannot fulfill the price of their sacrifices. But I aspire that together we rise to the responsibility of preventing death and destruction and restoring hope for a decent life for those who remain.