Astana Leads the Solution, Washington Outside it

Astana Leads the Solution, Washington Outside it

Since the announcement of formation of the Syrian Constitutional Committee by UN Secretary-General, Guterres, on the 23rd of Septemberm 2019, after the high pressure imposed by Astana trio in Ankra Summit held in September 16, it became clear that the Syrian situation reached and passed through a new turning point; a decisive one this time.

In preparation for passing through this turning point, during this passage, and after it, it became clear how little is the role played by the Western Small Group (USA, UK, France, Germany, KSA, Egypt, Jordan). USA tries to ressucitate the role of this Small Group, through fabricating chaos in the northeastern part of Syria, by seeking to create an instance of "bellum omnium contra omnes", for USA hopes that such a vehement chaos to occur in parallel with the US full withdrawal from Syria. By this chaos USA intends to make its withdrwal perform the same function as its presence, that is, the function of exhaustion, prevention of solution, and prevention of stability.


In this context Trump declared a partial withdrawal of the northeastern Syrian borders, in order to open the door for the Turkish agression. Tereafter, this trend was further encouraged by the 12-points US-Turkish agreement signed on the 17th of this October. These two steps were largely reversed and their adverse effects were neutralized by the Putin-Erdogan summit five days later, which produced a 10-points agreement, with keeping the issue of US withdrawal and pushing it further to a complete withdrawal, which was has been actually took place to a large extent, despite its later partial reversal in the regions of the Syrian oil fields, but this will not last so long.


In conclusion, the US attempt to provoke internal conflicts inside the Astana trio, in the context of paving the way for military and political US withdrawal from Syria, was not only disappointed, but also backfired, because the Astana trio goes unprecedentedly deeper in their consensus and higher in their level of cooperation. The most obvious results in this regard, is that the US magic turned on it, for most of the northeastern Syria, which constitutes more than a quarter of Syria's area, has been restored from the US influence back to the Syrian state, with the deployment of the Syrian Arab Army along most of the northern Syria borders. The region occupied by Turkey, which continues a about 10% of the northeaste area, would not last long before also being restored back, based on the efforts of a direct dialogue between the forces of the Syrian northeast and the Syrian government, on the one hand, a d between theses forces and the Turkish government, on the other hand. These dialogues should be based on abiding by the international law, and sovereignty of Syria, in parallel with the advancing process of political solution based on the UNSCR 2254, which will actually begin with the convention of the first meeting of the Syrian Constitutional Committee.

The most hindering obstacle on the road of the political solution and ending the Syrian crisis, was and remains the obstructing role played by USA and its western, regional and local derivatives. With the retreat of this role and its aproximation to the point of zero-weight, in parallel with the great increase in Astana wieght, the door is widely opened to the implementation of the full implementation of UNSCR 2254, including the restoration of the Syrian sovereignty, the sovereignty of the Syrian people, on all the Syrian territory, along with activation of the Syrian people's right to Self-Determination and their independent determination of the fate of their state. This can no longer be seriously hindered by the extremists of all Syrian sides, because the biggest hindering role was diminished to an unprecedented level.


Kassioun Editorial, Issue No. 937, October 28, 2019