Safe Zone and US-Turkish «mutual lying»

Besides, all that has been said in the declaration and around it, to the present, is still closer in its contents to initialed agreement, which very often stops at this stage, not more; if the matters remain pending and unsettled, especially the question of to what depth, and of what nature would the administration be, for there are two basic factors without which this declaration cannot be understood…

The first and most effective factor is the US decline in the general sense, and in the Syrian context in the specific sense. The objective view of the graphical line of events starting from September 2015 up today, can be asserted that Washington is losing on a daily basis in Syria, leading to the present day, so that it can be asserted with certainty that Washington is losing in Syria on a daily basis, and reached to a state of temporary stillness in regard to three entitlements that are intended to remain suspended for as long as possible (Idleb, the north-east, and the Constitutional Committee).

Over the past few months, it has become clear that maintaining the stalemate in Idlib' file and the Constitutional Committee file, has come to an end, and that pushing for concrete steps in these two files has become unavoidable. Given the deep intrinsic interconnection of the Syrian files to each other, Washington will not be unable to recognize the simple fact that the state of stillness in the Northeast file will not be prolonged, but will be subject to moves towards reducing the US role up to ending this role.

Within these coordinates, and under pressure from the progress of the Astana Consensuses, Washington has engaged in a proactive maneuver with Turkey on the Northeast question, with its hope that this may slow down the transformation of the various files, and may prolong the stillness stage by seeking to sow discord between the Astana trio.

The second highly influential factor in the issue of the “safe zone” and what is being raised about it, is that the size of the common interests between the Astana trio, and between Russia and Turkey in particular, not only with regard to Syria, but also in a long list of strategic files, has become so persistent and deep that it will not be negatively affected neither by small and temporary “shortcomings”, neither by  non-innovative US acrobatics.

In other words, the American and Turkish parties know more than anyone else that the consensus between them is nothing more than a mutual lie, through which each of them try not to agree with the other, but to trap it through any agreement whatsoever.

Moreover, the principle of full Syrian sovereignty over the entire Syrian territory has been a national and legally undebatable principle, and becomes practically non-negotiable by virtue of the new international balance of power and its developments, and any alleged Safe Zone will not be safer outside the framework of Syrian sovereignty… All of this is contingent upon the healing antidote of all these confusions; which is the comprehensive implementation of the UNSC resolution 2254, and the restoration of the sovereignty of the Syrian people and its right to self-determination, a right that makes its way through all these confuses, and despite all of them...

Kassioun Editorial, Issue No. 926, August 12, 2019