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
WHO chief says he is safe after Sanaa airport bombardment
“One of our plane’s crew members was injured. At least two people were reported killed at the airport,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted on X.
Other UN staff were also safe but their departure was delayed until repairs could be made, he added.
Tedros was in Yemen as part of a mission to seek the release of detained UN staff and assess the health and humanitarian situations in the war-torn country.
He said the mission “concluded today,” and “we continue to call for the detainees’ immediate release.”
While about to board their flight, he said “the airport came under aerial bombardment.”
“The air traffic control tower, the departure lounge — just a few meters from where we were — and the runway were damaged.”
The Israeli air strikes came a day after the latest attacks on Israel by Iran-backed Houthis.
The rebel-held capital’s airport was struck by “more than six” attacks with raids also targeting the adjacent Al-Dailami air base, a witness told AFP.
Israel strikes Yemen’s Sana’a airport, ports and power stations
- Houthis said that multiple air raids targeted an airport, military air base and a power station in Yemen
JERUSALEM: Israel’s military said it struck multiple targets linked to the Iran-aligned Houthi movement in Yemen on Thursday, including Sana’a International Airport and three ports along the western coast.
Attacks hit Yemen’s Hezyaz and Ras Kanatib power stations as well as military infrastructure in the ports of Hodeidah, Salif and Ras Kanatib, Israel’s military added.
The Houthis have repeatedly fired drones and missiles toward Israel in what they describe as acts of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
The Israeli attacks on the airport, Hodeidah and on one power station, were reported by Al Masirah TV, the main television news outlet run by the Houthis.
More than a year of Houthi attacks have disrupted international shipping routes, forcing firms to re-route to longer and more expensive journeys that have in turn stoked fears over global inflation.
Israel has instructed its diplomatic missions in Europe to try to get the Houthis designated as a terrorist organization.
The UN Security Council is due to meet on Monday over Houthi attacks against Israel, Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon said on Wednesday.
On Saturday, Israel’s military failed to intercept a missile from Yemen that fell in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa area, injuring 14 people.
Syria authorities say torched 1 million captagon pills
DAMASCUS: Syria’s new authorities torched a large stockpile of drugs on Wednesday, two security officials told AFP, including one million pills of captagon, whose industrial-scale production flourished under ousted president Bashar Assad.
Captagon is a banned amphetamine-like stimulant that became Syria’s largest export during the country’s more than 13-year civil war, effectively turning it into a narco state under Assad.
“We found a large quantity of captagon, around one million pills,” said a balaclava-wearing member of the security forces, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Osama, and whose khaki uniform bore a “public security” patch.
An AFP journalist saw forces pour fuel over and set fire to a cache of cannabis, the painkiller tramadol, and around 50 bags of pink and yellow captagon pills in a security compound formerly belonging to Assad’s forces in the capital’s Kafr Sousa district.
Captagon has flooded the black market across the region in recent years, with oil-rich Saudi Arabia a major destination.
“The security forces of the new government discovered a drug warehouse as they were inspecting the security quarter,” said another member of the security forces, who identified himself as Hamza.
Authorities destroyed the stocks of alcohol, cannabis, captagon and hashish in order to “protect Syrian society” and “cut off smuggling routes used by Assad family businesses,” he added.
Syria’s new Islamist rulers have yet to spell out their policy on alcohol, which has long been widely available in the country.
Since an Islamist-led rebel alliance toppled Assad on December 8 after a lightning offensive, Syria’s new authorities have said massive quantities of captagon have been found in former government sites around the country, including security branches.
AFP journalists in Syria have seen fighters from Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) set fire to what they said were stashes of captagon found at facilities once operated by Assad’s forces.
Security force member Hamza confirmed Wednesday that “this is not the first initiative of its kind — the security services, in a number of locations, have found other warehouses... and drug manufacturing sites and destroyed them in the appropriate manner.”
Maher Assad, a military commander and the brother of Bashar Assad, is widely accused of being the power behind the lucrative captagon trade.
Experts believe Syria’s former leader used the threat of drug-fueled unrest to put pressure on Arab governments.
A Saudi delegation met Syria’s new leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa in Damascus on Sunday, a source close to the government told AFP, to discuss the “Syria situation and captagon.”
Jordan in recent years has also cracked down on the smuggling of weapons and drugs including captagon along its 375-kilometer (230-mile) border with Syria.
Jordan says 18,000 Syrians returned home since Assad’s fall
AMMAN: About 18,000 Syrians have crossed into their country from Jordan since the government of Bashar Assad was toppled earlier this month, Jordanian authorities said on Thursday.
Interior Minister Mazen Al-Faraya told state TV channel Al-Mamlaka that “around 18,000 Syrians have returned to their country between the fall of the regime of Bashar Assad on December 8, 2024 until Thursday.”
He said the returnees included 2,300 refugees registered with the United Nations.
Amman says it has hosted about 1.3 million Syrians who fled their country since civil war broke out in 2011, with 650,000 formally registered with the United Nations.
Lebanon hopes for neighborly relations in first message to new Syria government
- Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah played a major part propping up Syria’s ousted President Bashar Assad through years of war
- Syria’s new Islamist de-facto leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa is seeking to establish relations with Arab and Western leaders
DUBAI: Lebanon said on Thursday it was looking forward to having the best neighborly relations with Syria, in its first official message to the new administration in Damascus.
Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib passed the message to his Syrian counterpart, Asaad Hassan Al-Shibani, in a phone call, the Lebanese Foreign Ministry said on X.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah played a major part propping up Syria’s ousted President Bashar Assad through years of war, before bringing its fighters back to Lebanon over the last year to fight in a bruising war with Israel – a redeployment which weakened Syrian government lines.
Under Assad, Hezbollah used Syria to bring in weapons and other military equipment from Iran, through Iraq and Syria and into Lebanon. But on Dec. 6, anti-Assad fighters seized the border with Iraq and cut off that route, and two days later, Islamist militants captured the capital Damascus.
Syria’s new Islamist de-facto leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa is seeking to establish relations with Arab and Western leaders after toppling Assad.
