UN Syria envoy to try to move on constitution before leaving

U.N. special envoy Staffan de Mistura said Wednesday he will make a final effort to advance toward a new constitution for Syria — a key step in ending the country's civil war — before stepping down at the end of November.

De Mistura announced he is departing for "purely, purely personal reasons" related to his family after four years and four months in one of the toughest U.N. jobs.

He also told the Security Council that objections by the Syrian government are still holding up the launch of the committee meant to draft a new constitution.

Bashar Ja'afari, center, Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations, attends a Security Council meeting, Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2018 at U.N. headquarters. (Rick BajornasUN via AP)

While there is agreement on the 50-member government and opposition delegations for the drafting committee, de Mistura said the government objects to a third 50-member delegation that the U.N. put together representing Syrian experts, civil society, independents, tribal leaders and women.

De Mistura said he has been invited to Damascus next week to discuss the committee's formation.

He said he also intends to invite senior officials from Russia, Turkey and Iran — the guarantor states in the so-called "Astana process" aimed at ending the violence in Syria — to meet him in Geneva, and to talk to a group of key countries comprising Egypt, France, Germany, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Britain and the United States.

"I would hope then to be in a position to issue invitations to convene the constitutional committee, hopefully during November," de Mistura said. "I offer no predictions whether this is possible. What I do know is that after nine months of preparations it is important to launch a credible, constitutional committee."

The U.N. envoy indicated he faces an uphill struggle.

During last month's high-level General Assembly meeting, he said, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem "strongly cast doubt" on the agreement to draft a new constitution that was reached in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi on Jan. 30. Al-Moallem called for a "fundamental reassessment" of the 50-member delegation the U.N. was authorized to put together as well as the rules of procedure and U.N.'s role as the facilitator, de Mistura said.

Russia and Iran, which back Syrian President Bashar Assad's government, have also called that list into question, de Mistura said.

The U.N. sought to balance its list "so that no political side could dominate the committee," de Mistura said, but the Syrian government reportedly wants more of its supporters on the U.N. list so its views will prevail in constitutional changes or a new document.

Syria's U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari made clear the government opposes a new constitution, telling the Security Council Wednesday that the mandate of the constitutional committee must be "to renew the current constitution — current constitution — because we do not want a constitutional vacuum, because Syria is not a failed state."

"We stress that the mandate of the committee is limited to reviewing the articles of the current constitution through a Syria-led and Syria-owned process," he said.

De Mistura has been trying for nine months to set up a constitutional committee as a key step toward elections and a political settlement to the more than seven-year Syrian conflict that has killed over 300,000 people. An agreement reached at a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Sochi on Sept. 17, aimed at averting an expected Syrian military offensive in the last rebel stronghold in Idlib, opened the possibility of progress.

De Mistura told the council "a catastrophe has so far been averted in Idlib" following the Russia-Turkey agreement, and "major strides have been taken in defeating terrorism."

He echoed Putin and Erdogan, who said the Idlib deal offered "a window for the constitutional committee to be established and the political process to go ahead."

Eight European Union countries called on Russia, Iran and Turkey, which supports the Syrian opposition, to ensure that the Idlib cease-fire is upheld. In a joint statement, they said it "should be an opportunity for the urgent resumption of the U.N.-led political process in Geneva."

The EU nations — France, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Britain, Italy, Belgium and Germany — gave "full support" to de Mistura's efforts to establish an inclusive constitutional committee that includes at least 30 percent women to lay the groundwork "for free and fair U.N.-supervised elections" called for by the Security Council.

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia responded to de Mistura's call for a November meeting and to the EU saying Moscow wants a constitutional committee to be formed "as quickly as possible, but setting artificial deadlines in this case would be counterproductive."

"There has to be agreement of all the parties and that takes time," Nebenzia said.

Syria's Ja'afari not only reiterated the government's new conditions for establishing the committee but told the council that Idlib, "just like any region in Syria, will return very soon to the sovereignty of the Syrian state." He didn't elaborate, but several Security Council nations worried aloud that a government offensive could still take place.

He also warned that in order to achieve durable peace, "all illegal foreign forces must leave Syria, including Turkish, American, British, French and Israeli forces."

De Mistura was asked about his repeated statements that there can be no military solution in Syria despite the government's success in recapturing most territory in the country.

"What matters is winning the peace," de Mistura replied. "And therefore it is so important to make sure that ... the political process takes place. The alternative will be territorial gains but no sustainable peace. That is what you have to look at."

He said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has asked him to report to the Security Council in November "whether the U.N. is in a position or not to convene a credible and balanced constitutional committee."

That briefing, de Mistura said, "will be the most important one, certainly, of my mission."

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for an American believed to be held by the Taliban for nearly two years are asking a United Nations human rights investigator to intervene, citing what they say is cruel and inhumane treatment.

Ryan Corbett was abducted Aug. 10, 2022, after returning to Afghanistan, where he and his family had been living at the time of the collapse of the U.S.-based government there a year earlier. He arrived on a valid 12-month visa to pay and train staff as part of a business venture he led aimed at promoting Afghanistan's private sector through consulting services and lending.

Corbett has since been shuttled between multiple prisons, though his lawyers say he has not been seen since last December by anyone other than the people with whom he was detained.

In a petition sent Thursday, lawyers for Corbett say that he's been threatened with physical violence and torture and has been malnourished and deprived of medical care. He's been held in solitary confinement, including in a basement cell with almost no sunlight and exercise, and his physical and mental health have significantly deteriorated, the lawyers say.

Corbett has been able to speak with his family by phone five times since his arrest, including last month. His family has not been able to see him — his only visits have been two check-ins from a third-party government — and their characterizations of his mistreatment are based on accounts from recently released prisoners who were with him and his openly dispirited tone in conversations.

“During Mr. Corbett’s most recent call with his wife and children, Mr. Corbett indicated that the mental torture and anguish have caused him to lose all hope,” said the petition, signed by the Corbett family attorneys, Ryan Fayhee and Kate Gibson.

The petition is addressed to Alice Edwards, an independent human rights investigator and the special rapporteur for torture in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the U.N. It asks Edwards, who was appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council, to “urgently reach out to the Taliban to secure Mr. Corbett’s immediate release and freedom from torture, as guaranteed by international law.”

"This situation is just dragging on, and I’m increasingly concerned and taking steps that I hope will make a difference and help the situation — just increasingly concerned and panicking about Ryan’s deteriorating health and physical and mental health," Corbett's wife, Anna, said in an interview. “And that was leading me to take this next step.”

The U.S. government is separately working to get Corbett home and has designated him as wrongfully detained. A State Department spokesman told reporters last month that officials had continually pressed for Corbett's release and were “using every lever we can to try to bring Ryan and these other wrongfully detained Americans home from Afghanistan."

A spokesperson for the Interior Ministry in Afghanistan said this week that it had no knowledge of Corbett's case.

Corbett, of Dansville, New York, first visited Afghanistan in 2006 and relocated there with his family in 2010, supervising several non-governmental organizations.

The family was forced to leave Afghanistan in August 2021 when the Taliban captured Kabul, but he returned the following January so that he could renew his business visa. Given the instability on the ground, the family discussed the trip and “we were all pretty nervous,” Corbett's wife said.

But after that first uneventful trip, he returned to the country in August 2022 to train and pay his staff and resume a business venture that involved consulting services, microfinance lending and evaluating international development projects.

While on a trip to the northern Jawzjan province, Corbett and a Western colleague were confronted by armed members of the Taliban and were taken first to a police station and later to an underground prison.

Anna Corbett said that when she learned her husband had been taken to a police station, she got “really scared” but that he was optimistic the situation would be quickly resolved.

That, however, did not happen, and Anna Corbett, who has three teenage children and makes regular trips to Washington, said she's trying to advocate as forcefully as she can while not letting “anxiety take over.”

“I feel like it’s the uncertainty of all of it that just is so difficult because you just don’t know what’s going to come at you — what call, what news," she said. "And I’m worried about Ryan and the effect of the trauma on him and then also on my kids, just what they’re experiencing. I've tried to protect them the best I could, but this is so difficult.”

Associated Press writer Riazat Butt in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.

This family photo shows Ryan Corbett holding rabbits with his daughter Miriam and son Caleb in Kabul, Afghanistan in 2020. Lawyers for Corbett, believed held by the Taliban for nearly two years, are asking a United Nations human rights investigator to intervene, citing what they say is cruel and inhumane treatment. Corbett was abducted on August 10, 2022 after returning to Afghanistan, where he and his family had been living at the time of the collapse of the U.S.-based government there one year earlier, on a valid 12-month business visa to pay and train staff. (AP Photo/Anna Corbett)