The European Union is sending a high representative to Damascus on Monday to meet the leaders of the new Syrian power, dominated by Islamists, with whom foreign chancelleries are increasing contacts, a little over a week after the fall of Bashar al-Assad.
On December 8, a rebel coalition entered Damascus and announced the overthrow of power, after a dazzling offensive which allowed it to seize a large part of the country in eleven days. Abandoned by his Iranian and Russian allies, Mr. Assad fled to Moscow.
Initially cautious, foreign chancelleries have redoubled their efforts in recent days to establish ties with the new Syrian leaders, including Abu Mouhammad al-Jolani, the leader of the radical Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), spearhead of the rebel offensive.
“Our high representative in Syria will go to Damascus today,” announced the head of European diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, on Monday.
“We need to first discuss the level of our engagement with the new Syrian leaders, and then what kind of steps we are willing to take to establish relations with them,” she told reporters.
She stressed that the EU will judge on actions “going in the right direction”, and not just the promises of the new authorities.
Arriving in Damascus on Sunday, the UN special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, met Mr. Jolani to whom he underlined the need for a “credible and inclusive” transition, his services indicated.
The United Kingdom also indicated on Sunday that it had established “diplomatic contacts” with HTS, the former Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda which claims to have broken with jihadism but which remains classified as “terrorist” by several Western capitals, including London and Washington. .
The United States, for its part, indicated on Saturday that it had established “direct contact” with HTS and France announced that it would send a diplomatic mission to Damascus on Tuesday, the first in 12 years, to “establish initial contacts” with the new authorities.
Neighboring Turkey, a major player in the conflict in Syria and support of the new authorities, reopened its embassy in Damascus on Saturday, saying it was “ready” to provide military aid if the new Syrian government requested it.
– “We need peace” –
Several countries and organizations had welcomed the fall of Assad, but said they were waiting to see how the new authorities, Sunni Muslims, would treat the minorities of the multi-ethnic and multi-religious country.
After 50 years of unchallenged rule by the Assad clan, and relentless repression against any opponent or presumed opponent, the new authorities are working to reassure the international community.
The new Prime Minister in charge of the transition until March 1, Mohammad al-Bashir, has promised to “guarantee the rights of all”, as Syrians try to return to normal life.
In Latakia, Syria’s second port on the Mediterranean, hundreds of men and some women members of the former government forces lined up Monday for more than 200 meters outside offices where the new authorities asked them to come and return their documents. weapons and register.
According to the site manager, Mohamad Mustapha, 26, a former soldier from Idleb, a rebel stronghold, 400 people showed up on Sunday when the center opened.
“We are expecting at least a thousand today,” he told AFP, estimating that “at least ten thousand ex-soldiers and police officers” should “show up” in this stronghold province of the Alawite minority, which is from the deposed Syrian president.
In peace, those concerned return pistols, automatic rifles, magazines and grenades, then are registered.
The new authorities will carry out investigations “into their past”, explains Mohamed Mustapha. “In the event of a serious crime, they will be transferred to justice.”
“We need peace, not new fighting,” told AFP Mohamad Fayoub, 37, a police officer in Hama (center) for ten years and originally from Latakia, who showed up spontaneously after seeing the notice. on social networks.
– Israeli strikes –
Nearly 14 years of civil war triggered by the repression of pro-democracy demonstrations have left a heavy toll in Syria, with half a million dead and six million inhabitants having fled abroad.
In this context of reorganization of a devastated and fragmented country, the Israeli neighbor carried out intense strikes during the night from Sunday to Monday on military sites in the coastal region of Tartous, including air defense units and “depots surface-to-surface missiles”, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, OSDH.
According to the NGO, these are the “heaviest” Israeli strikes “since 2012” in this region, which is home to a Russian naval base, while the Israeli army claims to want to prevent Syrian weapons from falling into the hands of extremists.
Israel also approved on Sunday a project aimed at doubling the population in the part of the Syrian Golan it occupies and annexes, but says it has no interest in entering into conflict with Syria, after taking control of the monitored buffer zone. by the UN separating the two countries on the Golan Heights.
These actions “seriously harm efforts aimed at establishing peace and stability in Syria,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry slammed Monday, calling on the international community to “react.”
Israel conquered part of the Golan, in southwest Syria, during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, and annexed it in 1981. Only the United States, during Donald Trump’s first term, recognized this annexation in 2019.
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