Before looking at what must be done to get Syria out of its crisis, restore its unity and the unity of its people, and restore its sovereignty, we must look at what is actually being done on the ground and in politics.
For several weeks now, a protest movement has been emerging in some areas in northwestern Syria, trying to work against a Syrian-Turkish settlement. It has expressed itself in part by standing against the reopening of the “Abu al-Zandin” crossing, in addition to a number of other activities and events.
Official Syrian, Turkish, and Russian statements over the past week regarding the Syrian-Turkish settlement, made by the Syrian president, the Russian foreign minister, and Turkish officials, indicate that the gradual steps towards reaching a settlement, which have extended for more than two years starting with the Tehran summit of the Astana trio in July 2022, have come close to reaching a point of no return. This is represented by a meeting at the presidents’ level, which naturally will not be the end of the issue. Instead, it will form the basis for consensus that will be followed by the practical implementation of the steps of that consensus.
On July 15, 2024, eight European ministers sent a joint letter to the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affair and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, Josep Borrell, calling on the European Union to reconsider its strategy towards Syria.
The European policy, said to be “new”, towards Syria is summed up in one clear sentence that came in the non-paper that eight European countries sent mid last month to the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. The aforementioned sentence is: “Today, a political solution in line with UN resolution 2254 seems out of reach”.
More than ten months have passed since the start of the open “Israeli”/American genocidal aggression against Gaza and Palestine as a whole. After the Americans have brazenly and openly acted against any talk of a ceasefire throughout the first five months, they kept on insisting on continuing the massacre after that, albeit in more oblique and hypocritical ways, which their international isolation has pushed them to do, particularly in this issue.
The recent non-paper on Syria that a group of European countries launched, as well as the appointment of an Italian ambassador to Syria after a long hiatus, have sparked a series of reactions.
On the outside, things appear to be stagnant in Syria in the political sense. Whether it is talking about the brakes applied against the progress of the Syrian-Turkish settlement, or about the People’s Assembly elections that passed as if they had not happened, or about the West’s formal continuation of its same policies, and other indicators that are relied upon to say that nothing has changed and nothing will change anytime soon.
Positive developments continue at the international and regional levels, and there are indications that they will soon be reflected on the Syrian arena. While the general tendency is still constantly moving towards further retreat of the Western powers, at the heart of which is the US, and with it the entire old world order, in parallel there is continuous progress of the rising powers that have taken significant steps in expanding their alliances as well as in working to settle regional crises that have been unresolved for decades, the Saudi-Iranian settlement being one example.
Press Statement
Moscow Platform
Representatives of the Moscow Platform for the Syrian Opposition in the Syrian Negotiation Commission (SNC) - Alaa Arafat, Youssef Salman, Sami Betinjane, Mohannad Dlykan - are heading to attend the SNC's next meeting on 2-3-4 June, in Geneva. This comes after an over 3.5 year interruption in the Platform's participation in any SNC activity, as a result of several pending controversial issues, especially since an arbitrary and illegal decision was taken against the Platform. The decision was to revoke the membership of one of the Platform's representatives in the SNC and its representative to the Syrian Constitutional Committee's Small Group, Mohannad Dlykan, after calling for transferring the Constitutional Committee's work to Damascus while securing the necessary guarantees for that, a position the Platform continues to see as the correct one and continues to demand it.
