The United States and several Western allies on Tuesday accused the Syrian government of deliberately delaying the drafting of a new constitution to waste time until presidential elections in 2021, and avoid U.N.-supervised voting as called for by the U.N. Security Council. U.S. deputy ambassador Richard Mills urged the Security Council to “do everything in its power” to prevent Bashar Assad’s government from blocking agreement on a new constitution in 2020. The Trump administration believes Assad’s hope is to “invalidate the work” of U.N. special envoy Geir Pedersen who has been trying to spearhead action on a constitution, and the council’s call for a political transition.
