UNITED NATIONS: The United States accused the Syrian government Thursday of stalling political negotiations and called for a new route to UN-monitored elections and a nationwide cease-fire that would end the country’s eight-year conflict.
Acting US Ambassador Jonathan Cohen called for Russia and Syria to de-escalate military operations in the last rebel-held strongholds in Idlib and northern Hama and warned that the United States will keep ratcheting up pressure if this doesn’t happen.
He told the Security Council it must acknowledge the failure of efforts to advance the political process by the so-called Astana group, comprised of Syrian government allies Russia and Iran and Syrian opposition supporter Turkey.
And after 17 months of negotiations to form a committee to draft a new Syrian constitution, Cohen said, “it is time to admit that not only has progress stalled, it is likely to remain out of reach for some time — because that’s where the regime wants it to be.”
Agreement on a new constitution has been seen as a key step toward implementing a 2012 roadmap for peace that includes a cease-fire and ends in UN-supervised elections. Endorsed by the Security Council, it was approved by representatives of the UN, Arab League, European Union, Turkey and all five veto-wielding council members: the US, Russia, China, France and Britain.
Cohen said it is time for UN special envoy Geir Pedersen, who has been trying to get the government and opposition to agree on a constitutional committee, to try other routes to a political settlement by focusing on preparations for elections and a cease-fire.
He said the US believes the reinvigoration of the political process should start with a cease-fire in Idlib and northern Hama. Cohen said Russia and close ally Syrian President Bashar Assad “must immediately cease military operations” and return to the lines of a 2018 cease-fire agreement. “Turkey should be entrusted to remove terrorist forces from the region” consistent with the agreement, he said.
The United States recognizes “there is no path forward without the cooperation of Russia and the Assad regime,” Cohen added.
But he warned that until Syria and Russia take “concrete steps” to de-escalate the violence in Idlib, “the United States will continue to apply diplomatic and economic pressure through all available means to isolate the regime and its allies.” He said Washington also will “ratchet up our pressure on the regime and its supporters if political progress on humanitarian and political tracks continues to stall.”
Deputy Russian Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov told the council that “the Astana guarantors are determined to fully implement the agreements on stabilization in Idlib” and said that “Russia is working energetically to make progress on the political front” in Syria.
But, Safronkov said, “demanding and calling on us to do nothing” in the face of “continuing provocative attacks” on the Syrian military, civilians and Russian air bases by extremists from the Al-Qaeda-linked Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham “is extremely dishonest.”
“Instead of demanding that we implement what we agreed on and signed, it would be better if everybody else got involved in the fight against terrorism,” he said. “That would be a real contribution to achieving the Syrian settlement.”
Pedersen, the UN envoy, told the council by video from Geneva that the only solution for Idlib is to stop fighting and have the key parties agree on a cooperative approach to countering “terrorism” that protects civilians. He reiterated Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ appeal to Russia and Turkey to quickly stabilize the situation.
Safronkov said Russia is hopeful of “a breakthrough” soon in forming the constitutional drafting committee, and Pedersen said he will be testing a formula he believes has the support of all parties in the near future.
But French Ambassador Francois Delattre said the Assad government “is refusing every compromise.” If the Syrian regime maintains its opposition, the council will have “to consider other ways to make progress,” he said.
Britain’s ambassador, Karen Pierce, went further, saying that if progress can’t be made, she agreed with the United States that Pedersen should “try other routes to achieving the political solution.”
While the Security Council is focused on the constitutional committee, she said, the bigger prize “includes preparing for nationwide elections observed by the UN, securing the release of detainees and establishing the nationwide cease-fire.”
US says Syria is stalling peace, urges new way to elections
US says Syria is stalling peace, urges new way to elections
- US envoy says Syria and Russia have to take “concrete steps” to de-escalate the violence in Idlib
- Russian envoy says they cannot just "do nothing” in the face of “continuing provocative attacks” by extremists
Sudan army air strike kills 10 in southern Khartoum: rescuers
- Strike targeted a market area of the capital’s Southern Belt ‘for the third time in less than a month’
- War between Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary forces has killed tens of thousands of people
The strike on Sunday targeted a market area of the capital’s Southern Belt “for the third time in less than a month,” said the local Emergency Response Room (ERR), part of a network of volunteers across the country coordinating frontline aid.
The group said those killed burned to death. The wounded, suffering from burns, were taken to the local Bashair Hospital, with five of them in a critical condition.
Since April 2023, the war between Sudan’s regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed tens of thousands of people.
In the capital alone, the violence killed 26,000 people between April 2023 and June 2024, according to a report by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Khartoum has experienced some of the war’s worst violence, with entire neighborhoods emptied out and taken over by fighters.
The military, which maintains a monopoly on the skies with its jets, has not managed to wrest back control of the capital from the paramilitary.
Of the 11.5 million people currently displaced within Sudan, nearly a third have fled from the capital, according to United Nations figures.
Both the RSF and the army have been repeatedly accused of targeting civilians and indiscriminately shelling residential areas.
Israel says Hamas has not given ‘status of hostages’ it says ready to free
- A Hamas official gave a list of 34 hostages the group was ready to free
JERUSALEM: Israel said on Monday that Hamas had so far not provided the status of the 34 hostages the group declared it was ready to release in the first phase of a potential exchange deal.
“As yet, Israel has not received any confirmation or comment by Hamas regarding the status of the hostages appearing on the list,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement after a Hamas official gave a list of 34 hostages the group was ready to free in the first phase.
Shooting attack on a bus carrying Israelis in the occupied West Bank kills 3
- The attack occurred in the Palestinian village of Al-Funduq, on one of the main east-west roads crossing the territory
JERUSALEM: A shooting attack on a bus carrying Israelis in the occupied West Bank killed at least three people and wounded seven others on Monday, Israeli medics said.
Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said those killed included two women in their 60s and a man in his 40s.
Violence has surged in the West Bank since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza ignited the ongoing war there.
The attack occurred in the Palestinian village of Al-Funduq, on one of the main east-west roads crossing the territory. The identities of the attackers and those killed were not immediately known. The military said it was looking for the attackers, who fled.
Palestinians have carried out scores of shooting, stabbing and car-ramming attacks against Israelis in recent years. Israel has launched near-nightly military raids across the territory that frequently trigger gunbattle with militants.
The Palestinian Health Ministry says at least 835 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and the Palestinians want all three territories for their future state.
Some 3 million Palestinians live in the West Bank under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority administering population centers. Over 500,000 Israeli settlers live in scores of settlements, which most of the international community considers illegal.
Meanwhile, the war in Gaza is raging with no end in sight, though there has reportedly been recent progress in long-running talks aimed at a ceasefire and hostage release.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed across the border in a massive surprise attack nearly 15 months ago, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s air and ground offensive has killed over 45,800 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local health authorities, who say women and children make up more than half of those killed. They do not say how many of the dead were militants. The Israeli military says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.
The war has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and displaced 90 percent of the territory’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times. Hundreds of thousands are enduring a cold, rainy winter in tent camps along the windy coast. At least seven infants have died of hypothermia because of the harsh conditions, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Aid groups say Israeli restrictions, ongoing fighting and the breakdown of law and order in many areas make it difficult to provide desperately needed food and other assistance.
New Syria foreign minister begins first visit to UAE: state media
Damascus: Syria’s new foreign minister Asaad Al-Shaibani landed in the United Arab Emirates Monday on his first visit to the country since rebels toppled president Bashar Assad last month, official news agency SANA said.
“Shaibani, accompanied by defense minister Murhaf Abu Qasra and intelligence chief Anas Khattab, has arrived in the United Arab Emirates,” SANA reported.
Shaibani also posted a picture of himself on X stepping off a plane, and said he looked forward “to building constructive bilateral relations.”
The officials took office after Islamist-led rebels swept into Damascus in early December, toppling Assad after more than 13 years of civil war.
Their trip to the UAE comes after they visited its Gulf neighbors Qatar on Sunday and Saudi Arabia last week.
Both Qatar and Turkiye, which backed the anti-Assad opposition, reopened their embassies in Damascus in the aftermath of Assad’s flight to Moscow.
Turkiye has long maintained a working relationship with the HTS rebels, leaving it with a direct line to Damascus.
US to ease aid restrictions for Syria while keeping sanctions in place, sources say
- Department to issue waivers to aid groups and companies providing essentials such as water, electricity and other humanitarian supplies
The US is set to imminently announce an easing of restrictions on providing humanitarian aid and other basic services such as electricity to Syria while still keeping its strict sanctions regime in place, according to people briefed on the matter.
The decision by the outgoing Biden administration will send a signal of goodwill to Syria’s new Islamist rulers and aims to pave the way for improving tough living conditions in the war-ravaged country while also treading cautiously and keeping US leverage in place.
US officials have met several times with members of the ruling administration, since the dramatic end on Dec. 8 of more than 50 years of Assad family rule after a lightning rebel offensive.
HTS, the faction that led the advance, has long-since renounced its former Al Qaeda ties and fought the group but they remain designated a terrorist entity by the US and Washington wants to see them cooperate on priorities such as counterterrorism and forming a government inclusive of all Syrians.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the Biden administration approved the easing of restrictions over the weekend, saying the move authorizes the Treasury Department to issue waivers to aid groups and companies providing essentials such as water, electricity and other humanitarian supplies.
