In Syria, the new power canceled the lease signed in 2019 which delegated the management and operation of the port of Tartous to a Russian company for 49 years. A worrying signal for Moscow, which fears seeing the concession for anchoring its warships in the Syrian port suffer the same fate.
In Syria, the Russia can no longer operate the commercial port of Tartous. If Moscow is still authorized to use this strategic Mediterranean port for military purposes, the Syrian media Sham reveals that the contract which allowed it to dock its tankers and freight ships for a period of forty-nine years was canceled. A decision which illustrates a pragmatic and cautious position on the part of the new Syrian authorities, according to Thomas Pierret, researcher at Irenam, specialist in Syria.
« It is a decision which, on the Syrian side, seems mainly motivated by the desire to generate income for the government, knowing that its sources of income are currently extremely limited and that it notably needs it to increase the salaries of civil servants like he promised it. It is therefore a question of recovering the 60% of revenue from the commercial activity of the port of Tartous, which until now went into the pockets of this Russian company which had obtained the contract in 2019 », Explains the researcher.
Ongoing negotiations on the future of military bases
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