ANKARA: Syrian peace efforts by Russia, Turkey and Iran moved into overdrive on Sunday with a foreign ministers’ meeting to be followed by a summit this week involving the three countries’ presidents.
Sergei Lavrov, Mevlut Cavosoglu and Javad Zarif met in the Turkish city of Antalya to discuss progress toward a political settlement and access to humanitarian aid. On Wednesday, Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Hassan Rouhani will meet in the Black Sea resort of Sochi in Russia.
The three countries are sponsors and guarantors of the Astana peace process, a series of talks in Kazakhstan that have led to the establishment of cease-fire and de-escalation zones in four areas of Syria. The process runs in tandem with UN-sponsored peace talks in Geneva.
Although Ankara initially differed with Tehran and Moscow over the Syrian conflict, over the years they have found common ground. Turkey has recently increased its criticism of US policy on Syria, blaming Washington for not keeping promises about a withdrawal by the Syrian-Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) from areas liberated from Daesh.
Ankara sees the YPG as the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the EU and the US.
“There is a growing assessment” that the US is using Daesh and the Syrian Kurds “as an excuse to remain in eastern Syria as a potential counterweighing force against the Russian-Iranian presence,” Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin wrote in the Daily Sabah newspaper.
He said Wednesday’s summit in Sochi was “an extension of the Astana process and complements rather than replaces the Geneva process.
“For both platforms to produce concrete and sustainable results, however, all stakeholders should contribute with a view toward protecting Syria’s territorial integrity and providing freedom and safety for all Syrians within the parameters of UN Security Council Resolution 2254.”
The resolution, unanimously adopted in December 2015, calls for an end to violence, a political settlement and elections within 18 months.
Gulriz Sen, an Iran expert at TOBB University in Ankara, said the fundamental divergence between Turkey and Iran over the fate of the Assad regime seems to have dissipated with the start of the Astana talks in January.
“The Astana talks strengthened diplomatic contacts and ties between Turkey and Iran on the Syrian issue,” Sen told Arab News.
“Turkey’s interests in Syria are more concentrated in the north of the country, with particular sensitivity over the fate of the main Syrian-Kurdish political party, the PYD (Democratic Union Party), and the Kurdish cantons.”
Sen said Syria’s borders with Iraq, Israel and Lebanon held strategic significance for Iran.
“Albeit on the same diplomatic table and in cooperation, Iran and Turkey are still competitors for further influence on the future of Syria,” she said. “But both states are aligned in keeping Russia as a counterweight to the US presence and strategies in Syria.”
The PYD/YPG issue is a red line for Turkey, which is against their participation in a conference sponsored by Russia to discuss reconciliation and a political settlement in Syria, planned for next month.
“Our sensitivity about the PYD/YPG is obvious. The participation of these terrorist groups would be unacceptable for Turkey,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said after Sunday’s meeting.
The increasing number of meetings between the three countries suggests that it is crucial for Russia to have the other two on board with its diplomatic initiatives, Timur Akhmetov, a researcher at the Russian International Affairs Council, a Kremlin think tank, told Arab News.
“Russia is aware that regional powers are allergic to interventions in Middle Eastern affairs from any outside powers,” he said. “Besides, Russia can’t ignore these players’ concerns due to their capacity to influence things on the ground in Syria and elsewhere in the region.
“All this necessitates closer coordination of efforts and synchronization of policy decisions between Russia and these two powers.”
None of the three countries think the Astana process enjoys sufficient international legitimacy, and the Syrian opposition is not ready to engage in definitive negotiations outside the Geneva process, Akhmetov said. “So the Astana and Sochi initiatives should, in the end, invigorate the Geneva meetings.”
The eighth round of Astana talks take place in the second half of December.
Astana peace process for Syria moves into overdrive
Astana peace process for Syria moves into overdrive
Israel says it downed Yemen-fired missile claimed by Houthis
- The insurgents have carried out dozens of missile and drone attacks on Israel since the Gaza war began with Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack
- The Houthis have also repeatedly targeted merchant ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden
“Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in several areas in Israel, a missile that was launched from Yemen was intercepted” before entering Israeli territory, the military said.
The Houthis, who control large parts of Yemen, said they targeted an air base “east of the occupied area of Haifa” with a “hypersonic ballistic missile.”
The insurgents have carried out dozens of missile and drone attacks on Israel since the Gaza war began with Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack.
They are part of Iran’s “axis of resistance” against Israel and the United States, presenting themselves as defenders of Palestinians in Gaza.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a statement that the group’s “support operations will continue until the aggression against Gaza ceases and the siege is lifted.”
The Houthis have also repeatedly targeted merchant ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, drawing retaliatory strikes by Israel, the United States and Britain.
Since President Donald Trump took office in January, the United States has intensified its bombing campaign, with almost daily strikes for more than a month.
Houthi media said this week that US strikes on the movement’s stronghold of Saada killed at least 68 people, all Africans being held at a “center for illegal migrants.”
The United States said in April its strikes since March 15 had hit more than 1,000 targets in Yemen and killed “hundreds of Houthi fighters.”
On Friday, the Houthi-run Saba news agency said three people were wounded in a US air strike the previous night in Al Wahda district, citing a preliminary toll.
All aboard Gaza aid flotilla confirmed safe, Malta government says
- Maltese government: ‘The vessel had 12 crew members on board and four civilian passengers; no casualties were reported’
VALLETTA: Everyone aboard an aid flotilla for Gaza that was hit by drones in international waters off Malta overnight are “confirmed safe,” the Maltese government said in a statement on Friday.
“The vessel had 12 crew members on board and four civilian passengers; no casualties were reported,” the statement said, adding that a nearby tug had been directed to aid the vessel.
“The tug arrived on scene and began firefighting operations. By 1:28 a.m. (2328 GMT Thursday), the fire was reported under control. An Armed Forces of Malta patrol vessel was also dispatched to provide further assistance,” the government said.
“By 2:13 a.m., all crew were confirmed safe but refused to board the tug ... The ship remains outside territorial waters and is being monitored by the competent authorities,” the statement concluded.
Sudan’s war-ravaged Khartoum tiptoes back to life after recapture by army
- In a lightning offensive in March, the army recaptured the city center, including the presidential palace and the airport
- Within the next six months, the UN expects more than two million displaced people to return to the capital if security conditions allow
KHARTOUM: In war-ravaged Khartoum donkey carts clatter over worn asphalt, the smell of tomatoes wafts from newly reopened stalls and pedestrians dodge burnt-out cars left by two years of war.
Life is slowly, cautiously returning to the Sudanese capital, weeks after the army recaptured the city from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) who had held it since soon after fighting erupted in April 2023.
Stallholder Maqbool Essa Mohamed was laying out his wares in the large market in the southern neighborhood of Kalakla.
“People feel safe again,” he said. “Business is moving and there’s security.”
Just weeks ago this market was deserted – shops shuttered, streets silent and snipers perched on rooftops.
In a lightning offensive in March, the army recaptured the city center, including the presidential palace and the airport, and the RSF was shed back into the western outskirts of greater Khartoum.
But the RSF remain within artillery range of the city center, as they demonstrated twice this week with a bombardment of the army’s General Command headquarters last Saturday followed by shelling of the presidential palace on Thursday.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been torn apart by a power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
The fighting has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted 13 million.
In greater Khartoum alone, more than 3.5 million people have fled their homes, leaving entire neighborhoods abandoned.
Within the next six months, the UN expects more than two million displaced people to return to the capital if security conditions allow.
Kalakla, a neighborhood on the road to Jebel Awliya – once an RSF bastion – suffered heavily during the war.
Its location close to a military base made it a prime target, with RSF fighters encircling the area and cutting off food and water for the civilians trapped inside.
In July 2023 activists called it “uninhabitable.”
But now women can be seen on the roadside brewing tea – a common sight before the war – as a man dragging his suitcase stands beside a minibus, newly arrived in the war-torn neighborhood.
Public transport has yet to return to normal as fragile security conditions and crumbling infrastructure impede movement.
With buses packed to capacity, weary commuters climb atop vehicles, preferring the risky ride over an indefinite wait for the next bus – which may not come for hours.
From January, the army began advancing in the greater Khartoum area and by late March had wrested back control of both Khartoum and the industrial city of Khartoum North just across the Blue Nile.
Standing amid the wreckage of the presidential palace, army chief Burhan declared: “Khartoum is free.”
The paramilitaries are now confined to the southern and western outskirts of Omdurman, the third of the three cities that make up greater Khartoum.
Both sides in the conflict have been accused of war crimes, including deliberately targeting civilians and indiscriminately bombing residential neighborhoods.
The RSF in particular has been notorious for systematic sexual violence, ethnic cleansing and rampant looting.
“They left nothing,” said Mohamed Al-Mahdi, a longtime resident. “They destroyed the country and took our property.”
Today, Mahdi steers his bicycle through the recovering market, where vehicles, animal carts and pedestrians jostle for space under the wary eye of the army.
Earlier this month, Sudan’s state news agency reported that the army-backed government plans to restore the water supply to the area – a basic necessity still out of reach for many.
But for vendor Serelkhitm Shibti, the costs of the war are not about lost income or damaged infrastructure.
“What pains me is every drop of blood that fell in this land, not the money I lost,” he said.
Israeli military strikes near Syria’s presidential palace after warning over sectarian attacks
DAMASCUS, Syria: Israel’s air force struck near Syria’s presidential palace early Friday hours after warning Syrian authorities not to march toward villages inhabited by members of a minority sect in southern Syria.
The strike came after days of clashes between pro-Syrian government gunmen and fighters who belong to the Druze minority sect near the capital, Damascus. The clashes left dozens of people dead or wounded.
The Israeli army said in a statement that fighter jets struck adjacent to the area of the Palace of President Hussein Al-Sharaa in Damascus. It gave no further details.
Pro-government Syrian media outlets said the strike hit close to the People’s Palace on a hill overlooking the city.
The Druze religious sect is a minority group that began as a 10th-century offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shiite Islam. More than half of the roughly 1 million Druze worldwide live in Syria. Most of the other Druze live in Lebanon and Israel, including in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast War and annexed in 1981. In Syria, they largely live in the southern Sweida province and some suburbs of Damascus.
US meets Syria’s top diplomat, urges action to protect Druze minority
- State Department spokeswoman confirms meeting in New York between US and Syrian delegations
WASHINGTON: The United States on Thursday confirmed meeting Syria’s top diplomat and called on the interim authorities to take action on concerns, as violence flares against the Druze minority.
Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani last Friday raised his new country’s flag at the UN headquarters, marking a new chapter after the overthrowing in December of longtime ruler Bashar Assad.
State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce confirmed that US representatives met the Syrian delegation in New York on Tuesday.
She said that the United States urged the post-Assad authorities to “choose policies that reinforce stability,” without providing any assessment on progress.
“Any future normalization of relations or lifting of sanctions... will depend on the interim authority’s actions and positive response to the specific confidence-building measures we have communicated,” Bruce told reporters.
The demands were in line with those set out in December by the United States, then led by president Joe Biden, and include protecting minorities and preventing a role in Syria by Assad’s ally Iran.
Since the Islamist fighters toppled Assad, sectarian clashes have repeatedly flared.
The spiritual leader of the Druze community on Thursday alleged a “genocidal campaign” after two days of violence left 102 people dead.
“We urge the interim authorities to hold perpetrators of violence and civilian harm accountable for their actions and ensure the security of all Syrians,” Bruce said of the violence against Druze.
