The UN called on Wednesday for “free and fair elections” in Syria after the transition period opened by the fall of Bashar al-Assad and pleaded for the rapid sending of massive humanitarian aid to the country, devastated by more 13 years of civil war.
“We must support the Syrian people and seize this moment of hope. And if we do not do it quickly, I fear that this window will close,” said the head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs ( Ocha), Tom Fletcher, in a telephone interview with AFP.
A coalition dominated by radical Islamists from the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group seized power on December 8 in Syria, ending the civil war sparked in 2011 by the repression of pro-democracy demonstrations, which lasted half a year. -million deaths and pushed six million Syrians into exile.
“I want to massively increase international aid, but it now depends on donors. The Syria fund has been historically, shamefully underfunded, and now there is this opportunity,” Tom Fletcher said.
Syria remains subject to international sanctions which HTS leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, who now goes by his real name, Ahmad al-Chareh, has called for to be lifted.
The new power has set up a transitional government until March 1 and is working to reassure foreign capitals of its ability to pacify the country.
The military leader of HTS, Mourhaf Abou Qasra, known by his nom de guerre of Abu Hassan al-Hamwi, announced to AFP on Tuesday that “the next step” would be the dissolution of the armed factions to merge them within the future army.
He invited the UN, the United States and the European countries concerned to remove HTS, from the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda but which claims to have broken with jihadism, from their lists of terrorist organizations.
– “A lot of hope” –
“I think (…) that there is a lot of hope, that today we are witnessing the beginnings of the new Syria,” said the UN special envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, on Wednesday in Damascus. .
“A new Syria (…) which will adopt a new Constitution guaranteeing a new social contract for all Syrians and which will organize fair and free elections” after the transition period, he added.
Several diplomatic missions met with the new leaders this week, emphasizing the need to respect the rights of all Syrians in a multi-ethnic and multi-faith country.
For foreign capitals, the challenge is in particular to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State jihadist group, which has never been completely eradicated in Syria.
Mr. Pedersen acknowledged that there was “stability in Damascus”, but that “challenges persist in other areas”, notably in the north-east, where the long-oppressed Kurdish community has feared since the fall of Bashar al-Assad to lose the limited autonomy that it acquired through a hard struggle.
Also in this region, fighting pits Kurdish forces against groups supported by Turkey.
Despite Washington’s announcement on Wednesday of the extension of a truce between these groups, 21 pro-Turkish fighters were killed on Wednesday after attacking a Kurdish position in the Manbij sector, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH). ).
Turkey believes that the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which control semi-autonomous areas in the northeast, are an offshoot of its sworn enemy, the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). .
A major player in Syria during the civil war, Turkey supports the new power. His Foreign Minister, Hakan Fidan, however affirmed on Wednesday that the victory of the rebels “is not a takeover of power by Ankara”.
He thus rejected comments from US President-elect Donald Trump, who described this victory as an “unfriendly takeover” by Ankara.
– First flight to Aleppo –
A sign of a certain return to normal, a commercial flight took off on Wednesday from Damascus airport for the first time since December 8, bound for Aleppo, the large city in the north of the country.
The airport, where international flights should resume from December 24, had been at a standstill since former President Bashar al-Assad took off on December 8 in the face of the progress of the rebel offensive launched since the north, before reaching Moscow.
Early Wednesday, hundreds of men in civilian clothes waited in the port city of Latakia in front of a center opened by the new authorities to register former soldiers and police officers, who were promised an “amnesty” if they did not been “perpetrators of crimes or torture”.
“I came to regularize my situation. For my safety first and to be able to move around,” Zein, a 33-year-old soldier who must “return in two days” to obtain a three-day pass, told AFP. month.
Other Syrians continued to search for loved ones who were victims of the former power’s security services, imprisoned or missing.
The White Helmets announced Wednesday the discovery of bodies and bones in a warehouse in the suburbs of Damascus, where such discoveries are increasing.
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