The USA stated Saturday it had made contact with Syria’s victorious Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rebels, as Western and Arab states together with Turkey collectively voiced help for a united, peaceable Syria.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s touch upon “direct contact” with the HTS rebels got here regardless of america having designated the group as terrorists in 2018.
Whereas Blinken and different diplomats held talks on Syria in Aqaba, Jordan, Turkey reopened its embassy in Damascus, practically every week after the Islamist-led rebels toppled president Bashar al-Assad –and 12 years after Ankara’s diplomatic mission was shuttered early in Syria’s civil conflict.
“We have been in touch with HTS and with different events,” Blinken advised reporters, with out specifying how the contact happened.
Ankara has been a significant participant in Syria’s battle, holding appreciable sway within the northwest, financing armed teams there, and sustaining a working relationship with HTS, which spearheaded the offensive that toppled Assad.
In a joint assertion after the assembly in Jordan, diplomats from america, Turkey, the European Union and Arab international locations “affirmed the complete help to the Syrian individuals at this important level of their historical past to construct a extra hopeful, safe and peaceable future”.
They known as for a Syrian-led transition to “produce an inclusive, non-sectarian and consultant authorities fashioned by means of a clear course of”, with respect for human rights.
“Syria lastly has the prospect to finish a long time of isolation,” the group stated.
The top of the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, within the nation’s northeast, on Saturday appealed on X for Kurds “to undertake a beneficial place towards the Syrian dialogue”.
UN particular envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen urged contributors within the Jordan talks to supply humanitarian help and to make sure “that state establishments don’t collapse”.
A Qatari diplomat stated Friday {that a} delegation from the Gulf emirate would go to Syria on Sunday to fulfill transitional authorities officers for talks on help and reopening its embassy.
In contrast to different Arab states, Qatar by no means restored diplomatic ties with Assad after a rupture in 2011.
EU overseas coverage chief Kaja Kallas stated in Jordan that the bloc, Syria’s greatest help supplier, is “keen on rebuilding and reconstruction of Syria”.
Assad fled Syria final weekend, hours earlier than insurgent forces seized Damascus, 5 former officers advised AFP.
His flight left Syrians in joyous disbelief on the sudden finish to an period during which suspected dissidents have been jailed or killed.
It capped greater than a decade of conflict that killed greater than 500,000 individuals and displaced thousands and thousands.
– ‘A lot tragedy’ –
Sunni Muslim HTS is rooted in Syria’s department of Al-Qaeda and is designated a “terrorist” organisation by many Western governments.
However the group has sought to reasonable its rhetoric. The interim authorities insists the rights of all Syrians shall be protected, as will the rule of regulation.
“We admire a few of the constructive phrases we heard in current days, however what issues is motion -– and sustained motion,” Blinken stated.
If a transition strikes ahead, “we in flip will take a look at varied sanctions and different measures that we’ve taken”, he added.
Pubs and liquor shops in Damascus initially closed following the insurgent victory, however are actually tentatively reopening.
“‘You’ve the best to work and reside your life as you probably did earlier than’,” Safi, the owner of Papa bar within the Previous Metropolis, stated the rebels had advised him.
However in Abu Dhabi, Anwar Gargash, a presidential adviser within the United Arab Emirates, stated “we should be on guard” regardless of HTS’s discuss of unity.
1000’s of Syrians have swarmed the nation’s infamous detention centres over the previous week, in search of proof that may cause them to family members who disappeared beneath Assad’s repressive rule.
Some former prisoners, like Mohammed Darwish, are additionally returning as free males to the place they have been as soon as incarcerated, looking for closure.
“When the door closed behind us, we have been plunged into the depths of despair. This cell was witness to a lot tragedy,” he stated, again at his former windowless cell in a Damascus jail.
Syrians additionally face a wrestle for requirements in a rustic ravaged by conflict, runaway inflation and years of sanctions.
The nation’s scenario stays extremely risky.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights stated an ambush Saturday had killed at the least 4 insurgent fighters once they have been ambushed by “loyalist parts of the previous regime” close to a villa belonging to an Assad relative on the Mediterranean coast.
– ‘Dumb politics’ –
Assad was propped up by Russia — to the place a former aide advised AFP he had fled — in addition to Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group.
The rebels launched their offensive on November 27, the identical day a ceasefire took impact within the Israel-Hezbollah conflict in Lebanon, during which Assad’s ally suffered staggering losses.
Naim Qassem, the chief of Iran-backed Hezbollah, admitted on Saturday that, with Assad’s fall, his group might now not be equipped militarily by means of Syria.
He additionally stated he hoped Syria’s new rulers noticed Israel “as an enemy” and don’t normalise ties with the nation.
Each Israel and Turkey have carried out army strikes inside Syria since Assad’s fall.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported greater than 60 Israeli strikes throughout Syria in a number of hours on Saturday.
To Gargash, the UAE adviser, such strikes are “dumb politics”, though “to structurally degrade Syrian capabilities may be seen as a wise factor from an Israeli sensible viewpoint”.
Israel has additionally ordered troops right into a UN-patrolled buffer zone that separated Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan Heights, a transfer the UN stated violated a 1974 armistice.
HTS chief Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, now utilizing his actual identify Ahmed al-Sharaa, stated the Israeli transfer “threatens a brand new unjustified escalation within the area”.
However “the final exhaustion in Syria after years of conflict and battle doesn’t permit us to enter new conflicts,” he stated in a web based assertion.
