The Syrian transitional government's foreign minister announced on Tuesday that the country's landmark national dialogue conference will be delayed in order to make sure preparations for the event include all segments of society, Syrian state media reports, cited by Reuters. The conference was announced shortly after the fall of Assad as an occasion to discuss the future of the country and is meant to also mark the dissolution of the leading group in Syria, Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham.
On a visit to Jordan, Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani said that the interim authorities had initially intended to hold the conference in early January, but instead, "we chose to form an expanded preparation committee" that would meet at an unspecified date, according to a report from The New Arab.
The committee would "include men and women... able to fully represent the Syrian people" across "all segments of Syrian society and provinces," the foreign minister said, in line the new authorities' insistence that the new government would be inclusive and representative of Syria's many ethnic and religious groups. The Syrian opposition forces that swept across the country in a 10-day lightning offensive that toppled the Assad regime, is made up of Islamist factions who have, since arriving in Damascus, put forward a markedly moderate image, amid fears within the Syrian public that it would impose its religious values.
"We in Syria are a diverse country," Shaibani is cited by the New Arab as saying, "and we can either regard this diversity as an opportunity... and a source of strength, or as a problem. If we view it as an opportunity, we can benefit from everyone in building this country."
"We don't view Syria as anything but a united Syria" for "all its people," Shaibani told the press. "We won't succeed if we do not follow this course."
Of the national dialogue meeting, he said: "We want this conference to represent the will of the people, and we consider it a cornerstone of future Syria."
