By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA, (Reuters) – The United Nations Special Envoy to Syria stated on Sunday that the opposition and government co-chairs of Syria’s Constitutional Committee agreed to create a new constitution.

The drafting committee, comprising 45 representatives of Syria’s government, opposition and civil society, has a mandate to draw up a new basic law leading to U.N.-supervised elections.

Geir Pedersen, Special Envoy, stated that the co-chairs of its Syrian counterparts met for the first time before week-long negotiations and agreed to “prepare” and begin drafting constitution reform.

He said that the talks will be the sixth in two years, and the first since January, for the drafting commission.

Hadi Al-Bahra (co-chair) of the Syrian Constitutional Committee stated that its opposition delegation sought reforms, including equal rights for all Syrian citizens.

He said that the lack of separation in power has created an inequality which was misused to its advantage.

He said that each side would submit proposed text on matters such as sovereignty and rule-of-law.

The media was not allowed to interview the delegates of the Syrian government to the negotiations.

The ten-year-old conflict in Syria spiralled from an uprising against President Bashar Al-Assad’s regime.

Assad was able to recover most of Syria with the support of Russia. However, significant territories remain out of his control. Turkish forces have been deployed in large parts of the northwest and north, while U.S. forces are located in the Kurdish-controlled northeast and east.

In January Pedersen, a veteran Norwegian diplomat, said Assad’s representatives had rejected proposals by the Syrian opposition as well as the envoy’s own ideas for moving the constitutional process forward.

“Since then…” “Since then…I have been…trying in vain to reach a consensus about how we will move forward.” “I am happy to report that we have achieved such a consensus,” he stated on Sunday.

According to Western diplomats, Russia has prodded Damascus to be more flexible in negotiations in recent weeks. Pedersen also made two trips to Moscow over the past months.

He stated that the Syrian Constitutional Committee was an important contributor to the political process, but it will not solve the political crises on its own.