MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday expressed “satisfaction” with the results of a Syria peace congress, the Kremlin said.
“The heads of state expressed satisfaction with the results of the Congress of Syrian National Dialogue held in Sochi on Jan. 30,” the Kremlin said in a statement.
UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said delegates had agreed to the formation of a committee to discuss the war-torn country’s post-war constitution.
The Kremlin statement said the agreements” reached at Sochi were aimed at finding a solution based on a UN Security Council’s resolution.
The presidents also spoke of the “further coordination of Russia and Turkey’s efforts to ensure the stable functioning of de-escalation zones” in Syria established by Turkey, Iran and Russia last year.
Around 1,400 delegates attended the meeting, as part of a broader push by regime-backer Moscow to consolidate its influence in the Middle East.
The conference was overshadowed by renewed fighting in northern Syria.
Opposition activists reported more airstrikes on the opposition-held Idlib province, where dozens have been killed in regime air raids this week, and Turkish troops continued their offensive on the Afrin enclave, held by a US-allied Kurdish militia which also boycotted the Russian-sponsored talks.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov nevertheless hailed the dialogue as an important step toward peace in Syria and sought to play down the opposition boycott.
“No one expected that it would be possible to bring together representatives of all groups of Syrians without exclusion,” he told reporters after the talks. “There is no big tragedy that two or three groups weren’t able to attend.”
Lavrov said the conference participants agreed to form a constitutional committee that will be based in Geneva. He said that the delegates proposed some of the committee’s members and that groups absent from the Sochi talks will be invited to name representatives.
A statement approved by the delegates said a final agreement on criteria for selecting members, the constitutional committee’s powers and its rules of procedure would be reached in Geneva under the UN aegis.
Staffan de Mistura, the UN envoy for Syria who has been leading Syrian peace talks in Geneva, said he would move quickly to set a schedule and a process for drafting the new constitution in Geneva “because Syria cannot wait.”
“All Syrians seek a safe, calm and neutral environment for a constitutional drafting to unfold,” he said in a statement. “All Syrians need a sustained cease-fire, full humanitarian access and the release (of) detainees, abductees and missing people.”
De Mistura told reporters at UN headquarters in New York late Tuesday by audio link from Sochi that he believes talks on a new constitution could achieve results because countries with influence on the government and opposition appear determined to insist that both sides engage.
Alexander Lavrentyev, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s envoy for Syria, said 1,393 delegates attended the congress. He said the Sochi organizers were aiming to help revive the UN-backed talks in Geneva, not to sidetrack them.
De Mistura said he is counting on Russia and Iran and opposition supporter Turkey to use their influence to implement the agreement they supported in Sochi, along with the UN and other influential countries.
“The devil is in the detail,” he repeated twice. “It’s going to be uphill. We all know it. But we are actually going to establish a constitutional committee.”
De Mistura said he will come up with the criteria for participants and choose a maximum of 45-50 members for the committee.
Russia, Iran and Turkey have each submitted 50 names already, but he said there will definitely be “very substantial participation” from the opposition that skipped Sochi along with regime, other opposition and independent representatives.
He refused to give a timeline.
Asked why the focus was on a new constitution ahead of a transition, de Mistura retorted: “Are we going to ignore the fact that there is an opportunity for actually having a constitutional committee that may ... write a new constitution and that will lead to possible UN-led or UN-supervised elections?"
Putin, Erdogan ‘satisfied’ with Sochi congress: Kremlin
Putin, Erdogan ‘satisfied’ with Sochi congress: Kremlin
Mediator Qatar confirms ‘technical meetings’ on Gaza truce ongoing
“The technical meetings are still happening between both sides,” ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari said, referring to meetings with lower-level officials on the details of an agreement. “There are no principal meetings taking place at the moment.”
Mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States have been engaged in months of talks between Israel and Hamas that have failed to end the devastating conflict in Gaza.
Ansari said there were “a lot of issues that are being discussed” in the ongoing meetings, but declined to go into details “to protect the integrity of the negotiations.”
Hamas said at the end of last week that indirect negotiations in Doha had resumed, while Israel said it had authorized negotiators to continue the talks in the Qatari capital.
A previous round of mediation in December ended with both sides blaming the other for the impasse, with Hamas accusing Israel of setting “new conditions” and Israel accusing Hamas of throwing up “obstacles” to a deal.
In December, the gas-rich Gulf emirate expressed optimism that “momentum” was returning to the talks following Donald Trump’s election victory in the United States.
A month earlier, Doha had said it was putting its mediation on hold, and that it would resume when Hamas and Israel showed “willingness and seriousness.”
Syrian mayor says Israel collected arms from locals in Golan buffer zone
- Some Syrians seized weapons left behind by soldiers and security personnel, Mreiwel said, with the Israeli army dedicating an area for people to hand over those weapons
QUNEITRA: A Syrian mayor told AFP he had meetings with Israeli officers as the military conducted incursions in his village inside a Golan Heights buffer zone, saying they had demanded locals relinquish their weapons.
The Israeli military, contacted by AFP, said it could not comment.
Mohamed Mreiwel, mayor of the village of Jabata Al-Khashab in Quneitra province, said on Monday that he had met three times with Israeli officials who had asked to see him.
Israel, long a foe of Syria, has launched hundreds of strikes on Syrian military sites since the fall of president Bashar Assad on December 8, destroying most of the army’s arsenal, a war monitor has said.
The same day Assad was toppled by Islamist-led forces, Israel also announced that its troops were crossing the armistice line and occupying the UN-patrolled buffer zone that has separated Israeli and Syrian forces on the strategic Golan Heights since 1974.
Mreiwel said that in his first meeting with the Israelis, “they asked for weapons to be handed over to them within 48 hours.”
Residents of the village, which is located in the buffer zone, had complied with the request, he said.
Syria’s army collapsed in the face of the rebel offensive, with thousands of soldiers, policemen and other security officials deserting their posts.
Some Syrians seized weapons left behind by soldiers and security personnel, Mreiwel said, with the Israeli army “dedicating an area for people to hand over those weapons.”
During his latest meeting with the Israelis on Sunday, “we told them that we no longer had any weapons and that if we had any, we would hand them over to the Syrian government,” said Mreiwel.
He added that he told the Israeli officials that “we are not allowed to meet with you,” as Syria and Israel are still technically at war and do not have diplomatic ties.
Israeli troops have conducted patrols on the main street of Jabata Al-Khashab, an AFP correspondent said.
Israeli tanks are also stationed in nearby Baath City, named for the now suspended political party that ran Syria for decades until Assad’s ousting.
Israel seized much of the Golan Heights from Syria in war in 1967, later annexing the territory in a move largely unrecognized by the international community.
Jordan, Syria to combat arms and drugs smuggling, resurgence of Daesh
DUBAI: Jordan and Syria agreed to form a joint security committee to secure their border and combat the smuggling of arms and drugs as well as cooperating to prevent the resurgence of Daesh, Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on Tuesday.
During the press conference with his Jordanian counterpart Al-Shibani said that the latest US move to ease sanctions should be a step towards full lifting of sanctions. Shibani said existing sanctions were a main hurdle to the recovery of Syria
Israel calls for pressure on Turkiye to stop attack on Kurds
JERUSALEM: Turkiye must face pressure from world powers to stop attacks on Kurds in northern Syria, a senior Israeli foreign ministry official said on Tuesday.
"The international community must call on Turkey to stop these aggressions and killing. The Kurds must be protected by the international community," foreign ministry director general Eden Bar Tal told reporters.
Palestinian health ministry says 2 killed in Israeli West Bank raids
- Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 820 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the war
Ramallah: The Palestinian ministry of health said Israeli forces killed two people on Tuesday in separate raids in the northern West Bank, while the military said it had targeted a “terrorist cell.”
One Palestinian was killed in the town of Tammun, and another in the village of Talouza, the Ramallah-based ministry said.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said its teams had transported the body of an 18-year-old from Tammun who was killed “as a result of shelling,” and that five other people were severely injured during the Israeli raid.
The body was taken to the Turkish Hospital in the nearby city of Tubas, where the director identified the deceased as Suleiman Qutaishat.
The Red Crescent said the other Palestinian was killed in an Israeli raid around the village of Talouza, near Nablus, and was 40 years old.
Residents in the area identified him as Jaafar Dababshe, who they said was shot dead by Israeli forces in front of his house.
The Israeli army when contacted did not offer details, but said on its Telegram channel: “An air force aircraft targeted an armed terrorist cell in the Tammun area” in the early hours of Tuesday.
Violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank has soared since the war in Gaza erupted on October 7, 2023 after Hamas’ attack on Israel.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 820 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the war, according to the Ramallah-based health ministry.
Palestinian attacks on Israelis have also killed at least 28 people in the West Bank in the same period, according to Israeli official figures.
On Monday, three Israelis were killed when gunmen opened fire on a bus and other vehicles in the West Bank, according to medics.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.
