The Secretary-General of the United Nations also felt that there was a “glimmer of hope” in Syria after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad, overthrown by a coalition led by radical Islamists.
“The Middle East is ravaged by many fires, but today there is a glimmer of hope in Syria, and that glimmer must not be extinguished,” he said ahead of a U.N. Security Council meeting chaired by U.S. diplomatic chief Antony Blinken.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday that Israeli strikes on Syrian military infrastructure were “violations” of the country's sovereignty.
“The large-scale Israeli air strikes continue. They are violations of Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and they must stop,” he said ahead of a U.N. Security Council meeting chaired by U.S. diplomatic chief Antony Blinken.
Hundreds of people demonstrated in central Damascus on Thursday for democracy and women's rights, more than 10 days after the fall of the capital to a coalition led by radical Islamists.
“We want democracy, not a religious state,” "Syria, a free and secular state," chanted the demonstrators, men and women alike, gathered in the emblematic Umayyad Square, AFP journalists observed. “No free nation without free women,” read one placard.
Thousands of people demonstrated in the northeastern Syrian city of Qamichli in support of Kurdish forces attempting to repel offensives by Turkish-backed fighters, according to AFP correspondents.
In an unprecedented move, demonstrators waved the three-star Syrian independence flag, the symbol of the 2011 uprising adopted by the new authorities in Damascus, alongside flags of the Kurdish Autonomous Administration and its de facto army, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Russian President Vladimir Putin also called on Israel on Thursday to withdraw its troops from “Syrian territory,” having deployed them in a U.N.-controlled buffer zone separating the two countries on the Golan Heights.
“We hope that Israel will withdraw from Syrian territory at some point,” said the Russian leader, whose country serves as a safe haven for Bashar al-Assad. “The main beneficiary of events in Syria is Israel. Russia condemns the seizure of any Syrian territory,” he added, at his major annual press conference.
The Turkish army will "continue" its preparations on the Turkish-Syrian border until Kurdish fighters in northern Syria "lay down their arms," according to a statement from the Turkish Ministry of Defense, cited by AFP.
"The threat to our borders ... persists. Our preparations and measures in our fight against terrorism will continue until the PKK/YPG terrorist organization lays down its arms and its foreign fighters leave Syria," ministry spokesperson Zeki Akturk told the Turkish press.
Yesterday, Farhad Shami, the Kurdish forces’ spokesperson, released a statement on X, saying, “Our forces are currently establishing defensive positions to counter ongoing attacks and safeguard all areas within north and eastern Syria, with a particular focus on the defense of Kobani.”
The shakey cease-fire between U.S.-backed Kurdish forces and Turkish-backed Syrian forces has already been punctuated by ongoing attacks. Shami accused Turkey and its allies of “attempting to exploit the current truce to continue its expansionist agenda and deceive the international community.”
The fall in Syria of Bashar al-Assad, a close ally of Moscow, is not a "defeat" for Russia, said Russian President Vladimir Putin, while claiming that the Russian army, mobilized in Syria since 2015, had "achieved [its] objective" there," AFP reports. Putin also said he had not yet seen Assad, who has taken refuge with his family in Russia. "I have not yet seen President Assad since his arrival in Moscow, but I intend to do so. I will certainly talk to him,"
"People are trying to present what happened in Syria as a defeat for Russia. I assure you that this is not the case," he said at his major annual press conference. "We came to Syria ten years ago to prevent a terrorist enclave being created there, like in Afghanistan. On the whole, we have achieved our objective."
Read about Russia's military bases in Syria here. 👈
France said yesterday that it would host an international meeting on Syria in January and that the lifting of sanctions and reconstruction aid would be conditional on clear political and security commitments by the transitional authority, Reuters reports.
Acting Foreign Minister Jan-Noel Barrot told parliament that the diplomats had seen positive signals from the transitional authority and that in the capital, at least, Syrians appeared to be resuming their normal life without being impeded. "We will not judge them by their words but by their actions, and over time," Barrot said.
The January meeting would be a follow-up to a meeting in Jordan last week that included Turkey, Arab and Western states. It was not immediately clear whether Syrians would attend or what the precise objective of the conference would be.
Barrot said an inclusive transition would be vital and that Western powers had many tools at their disposal to ease the situation, notably the lifting of international sanctions and aid reconstruction. "But we are making this support conditional on clear commitments on the political and security front," he said.
The U.N. envoy to Syria called for "free and fair" elections yesterday following the ousting of Assad, voicing hope for a political solution for Kurdish-held areas. Assad fled Syria more than 13 years after his crackdown on democracy protests precipitated one of the deadliest wars of the century.
Addressing reporters in Damascus, U.N. special envoy Geir Pedersen, cited by AFP, said "There is a lot of hope that we can now see the beginning of a new Syria. A new Syria that... will adopt a new constitution... and that we will have free and fair elections when that time comes, after a transitional period," he said.
Pedersen said a key challenge was the situation in Kurdish-held areas in Syria's northeast, amid fears of a major escalation between the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Turkey-backed groups. Turkey accuses the main component of the SDF, the People's Protection Units (YPG), of being affiliated with Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants at home, whom both Washington and Ankara consider a "terrorist" group.
The United States said Tuesday it had brokered an extension to a fragile cease-fire in the flashpoint town of Manbij and was seeking a broader understanding with Turkey.
Turkey rejected U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's claim yesterday that HTS' toppling of Assad was an "unfriendly takeover" by Ankara. "We wouldn't call it a takeover, because it would be a grave mistake to present what's been happening in Syria" in those terms, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told broadcaster Al Jazeera in an interview, cited by AFP.
On Monday, Trump said: "The people that went in [to Syria] are controlled by Turkey and that's ok. Turkey did an unfriendly takeover, without a lot of lives being lost," the billionaire businessman told reporters.
Since the early days of the anti-Assad revolt that erupted in 2011, Turkey has been seen as a key backer of the opposition to the dictator's rule. It has hosted political dissenters as well as millions of refugees and also backed rebel groups fighting the army. However, Fidan said it would be incorrect to characterize Turkey as the power that would rule Syria in the end.
"I think that would be the last thing that we want to see, because we are drawing huge lessons from what's been happening in our region, because the culture of domination itself has destroyed our region," he said. "Therefore, it is not Turkish domination, not Iranian domination, not Arab domination, but cooperation should be essential."
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Wednesday on Syria's triumphant HTS rebels to follow through on promises of inclusion, saying it can learn a lesson from the isolation of Afghanistan's Taliban, AFP reports.
Both during and since toppling Bashar al-Assad, HTS, which has roots in (though now divorced from) Al-Qaeda and supported by Turkey, has promised to protect the diverse religious and ethnic demographics in Syria and uphold personal liberties.
"The Taliban projected a more moderate face, or at least tried to, in taking over Afghanistan, and then its true colors came out. The result is it remains terribly isolated around the world," Blinken said at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
After some initial overtures to the West, the Taliban reimposed a strict interpretation of Islamic law that includes barring women and girls from secondary school and university. "So if you're the emerging group in Syria," Blinken said, "if you don't want that isolation, then there's certain things that you have to do in moving the country forward."
Already have an account? Login here
You have reached your article limit
Iran-US-Lebanon: Everything can change in an instant.
Stay informed for only $6.9/month for 1 year, instead of $12.9.
This article is only available to L’Orient Today subscribers.
Already have an account? Login here