Brussels – France could be the first Western country to welcome Syria’s new interim president, Ahmed al-Shara’. At any rate, this is what is being leaked from Damascus, as the Elysée has not yet officially confirmed the invitation. It is likely that the occasion for the visit will be the international conference on the future of the Middle Eastern country, which will be held in Paris on February 13.
The fuss caused by the improvised (and unexpected) fall of the bloodthirsty regime of Bashar al-Assad, overthrown in early December by the Salafist militias of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS, literally “Committee for the Liberation of the Levant”) led by Ahmed al-Shara’, otherwise known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani (which he, however, asked his interlocutors not to use).
However, the “new Syria” is already enjoying, if not a total reset of its international relations, at least an important line of credit. At the end of January, for example, the Foreign Ministers of the Twenty-Seven have agreed to phase out parts of the broad sanctions regime that the EU had imposed against the Levantine country, although it is still too early for technical details.
The direct channel with Paris
Yesterday (Feb. 5), the new master of post-Assad Syria heard French President Emmanuel Macron on the phone, thus opening his first direct channel with a European leader. The Elysee tenant, reads an official communiqué, discussed with his counterpart “the need to continue the fight against terrorism, for the benefit of the Syrian people and the security of the French nation,” expressing Paris’s readiness “to support the transition” underway and hoping that the latter “can fully meet the aspirations of the Syrian people.”
What Macron failed to announce, at least according to transalpine media, is that he invited al-Shara’ to visit Paris ” personally in the coming weeks.” This was reported not by the Elysée but by the Syrian presidency office. This would be the first meeting with a Western leader, following those with regional neighbours. After receiving the Emir of Qatar, al-Shara’ recently travelled to Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Reconstruction and Migration
The new interim president is spreading the message that the two priorities of his new course are stability and rebuilding the country. The latter, evidently, will be a gigantic business. This, among other things, will be discussed on February 13 at the International Conference on Syria, which will be held in the transalpine capital.
Beyond all the big words about the democratic and inclusive transition that al-Shara’ claims to want to pursue, it is clear that a central issue in future relations between Damascus and Brussels will be the management of migration flows, an eternal thorn in the side of European chancelleries. They are waiting, in these very weeks, for the EU executive’s proposal on the infamous extra-EU “repatriation hubs” to deport to third countries refugees they do not wish to accept on their own territory and about which the European Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) just sounded today a feeble wake-up call.
Geopolitics and Security
In addition, there is the geo-strategic dimension. On the one hand, Syria—battered by over a decade of devastating civil war, during which al-Assad did not hesitate to use chemical weapons against his own citizens, and torn by the experience of the Islamic State (to which, incidentally, the HTS was affiliated for a time)—has historically been a strong ally of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, to which it notoriously provided access to the Mediterranean via the port of Tartus, not far from the border with Lebanon. There, Moscow operated a naval base that it seems to be now abandoning, at least judging from satellite images collected in late January. The challenge for the new Syria’s regional and European partners is to get Damascus out of the Kremlin’s orbit.
On the other hand, the security issue may prove more complex. Turkey’s new sultan, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for example, intends to continue fighting the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a coalition of militias that control the de facto autonomous Rojava region in the northeast of the country. Its main formation is the Kurdish People’s Protection Unit (YPG), which Ankara considers the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), classified as a terrorist organisation.
In contrast, for Westerners, the Kurds represent a valuable ally in the fight against jihadist terrorism (at least nominally, given the resounding volte-face of Donald Trump‘s United States in 2019). For the time being, Macron would reiterate France’s “loyalty” to them. However, for al-Shara’, seeking the broadest and strongest possible international support, there is now a problem of how to integrate them into the post-dictatorial Syrian state.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
