Two weeks after seizing energy in a sweeping offensive, Syria’s new chief Ahmed al-Sharaa on Sunday stated weapons within the nation, together with these held by Kurdish-led forces, would come underneath state management.
Sharaa spoke alongside Turkish International Minister Hakan Fidan, after earlier assembly with Lebanese Druze leaders and vowing to finish “unfavorable interference” within the neighbouring nation.
Ankara-backed rebels performed a key function in supporting Sharaa’s Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which headed a insurgent alliance that seized Damascus on December 8, toppling longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad.
Throughout a press convention with Fidan, Sharaa stated Syria’s armed “factions will start to announce their dissolution and enter” the military.
“We’ll completely not enable there to be weapons within the nation outdoors state management, whether or not from the revolutionary factions or the factions current within the SDF space”, he added, referring to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
Sharaa traded within the olive-green army shirt he sported simply days in the past for a go well with and tie throughout his conferences on Sunday on the presidential palace.
He additionally stated “we’re engaged on defending sects and minorities from any assaults that happen between them” and from “exterior” actors exploiting the state of affairs “to trigger sectarian discord”.
“Syria is a rustic for all and we are able to coexist collectively,” he added.
That sentiment was on show on the colourfully-lit Christmas market in Damascus, the place Batoul al-Regulation a dietician, stated there have been extra Muslims than Christians.
“We’ve at all times celebrated each Christian and Muslim holidays collectively,” she stated, however “you are feeling that individuals are actually happier and extra comfy.”
Turkey’s Fidan stated sanctions on Syria should “be lifted as quickly as doable”. He known as for the worldwide neighborhood to “mobilise to assist Syria get again on its toes and for the displaced individuals to return”.
Syria’s practically 14-year civil battle killed greater than half 1,000,000 individuals and displaced greater than half its inhabitants, with lots of them fleeing to neighbouring international locations, together with three million in Turkey.
Turkey has maintained sturdy ties with Syria’s new leaders, and has continued army operations towards Kurdish-held areas in northeastern Syria.
A senior German diplomat, Tobias Tunkel, on Sunday stated on X that he had spoken with SDF chief Mazloum Abdi about rising tensions within the Kurdish-held border city of Kobane “and pressing steps to diffuse them.”
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights stated a girl and her baby had been killed in “artillery shelling by pro-Turkey factions” within the Kobane countryside, and the factions clashed with the SDF additional south.
Ankara regards the Folks’s Safety Models (YPG), the primary element of the SDF, as being linked to the militant Kurdistan Employees’ Social gathering (PKK) at residence, which each Turkey and Western allies deem a “terrorist” organisation.
– ‘Respect Lebanon’s sovereignty’ –
Regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia can also be in direct contact with Syria’s new authorities, having supported the opposition to Assad for years throughout Syria’s civil battle. Riyadh will ship a delegation to the nation quickly, Syria’s ambassador within the Saudi capital stated.
Throughout his assembly with visiting Lebanese Druze chiefs Walid and Taymur Jumblatt, Sharaa stated Syria would not interact in “unfavorable interference in Lebanon in any respect”.
Syria “will keep at equal distance from all” in Lebanon, Sharaa added, acknowledging that Syria has been a “supply of concern and anxiousness” for its neighbour.
Walid Jumblatt, lengthy a fierce critic of Assad and his father Hafez who dominated Syria earlier than him, arrived in Damascus on Sunday on the head of a delegation of lawmakers from his parliamentary bloc and Druze spiritual figures.
The Druze spiritual minority is unfold throughout Lebanon, Syria, Israel and Jordan.
The Syrian military entered Lebanon in 1976, solely leaving in 2005 after huge strain and mass protests following the assassination of former prime minister Rafic Hariri, a killing attributed to Damascus and its ally, Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group.
The seizure of energy by the Sunni Islamists of HTS — proscribed as a terrorist organisation by many governments together with america — has sparked concern, although the group has in recent times sought to average its picture.
International powers together with america and the European Union have stepped up contacts with the war-ravaged nation’s new leaders, urging them to ensure protections for girls and minorities.
The overseas leaders have additionally burdened the significance of combating “terrorism and extremism”.
Assad had lengthy performed a strategic function in Iran’s “axis of resistance”, a unfastened alliance of regional proxy forces aligned towards Israel, notably in facilitating the provision of weapons to Hezbollah in neighbouring Lebanon.
That axis has suffered heavy blows over the previous 12 months with Israel’s devastation of the management of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme chief of Iran, on Sunday nonetheless denied that these armed teams acted as proxies, including that: “If in the future we need to take motion, we don’t want a proxy power.”
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