Two weeks after seizing energy in a sweeping offensive, Syria’s new chief Ahmed al-Sharaa on Sunday mentioned weapons within the nation, together with these held by Kurdish-led forces, would come beneath state management.
Sharaa spoke alongside Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, after earlier assembly with Lebanese Druze leaders and vowing to finish “detrimental interference” within the neighbouring nation.
Ankara-backed rebels performed a key position in supporting Sharaa’s Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which headed a insurgent alliance and seized Damascus on December 8, ousting longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad.
During a press convention with Fidan, Sharaa mentioned Syria’s armed “factions will start to announce their dissolution and enter” the military.
“We will completely not enable there to be weapons within the nation exterior state management, whether or not from the revolutionary factions or the factions current within the SDF space”, he added, referring to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
Sharaa — also referred to as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani — had traded within the olive-green army shirt he sported simply days in the past for a swimsuit and tie throughout his conferences Sunday on the presidential palace.
He additionally mentioned “we’re engaged on defending sects and minorities from any assaults that happen between them” and from “exterior” actors exploiting the scenario “to trigger sectarian discord”.
“Syria is a rustic for all and we are able to coexist collectively,” he added.
Fidan mentioned sanctions on Syria should “be lifted as quickly as potential”. He referred to as for the worldwide neighborhood to “mobilise to assist Syria get again on its toes and for the displaced folks to return”.
Syria’s almost 14-year civil battle killed greater than half 1,000,000 folks and displaced greater than half its inhabitants, lots of them fleeing to neighbouring nations, together with three million in Turkey.
Turkey has maintained sturdy ties with Syria’s new leaders, and Ankara’s intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin was in Damascus simply 4 days after Assad fell.
Ankara has in the meantime continued operations in opposition to Kurdish-held areas in northeastern Syria, with a Britain-based battle monitor reporting on Saturday {that a} Turkish drone strike killed 5 civilians within the space.
Ankara regards the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the primary part of the SDF, as being linked to the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) at house, which each Turkey and Western allies deem a “terrorist” organisation.
– ‘Respect Lebanon’s sovereignty’ –
Regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia can be in direct contact with Syria’s new authorities, having supported the opposition to Assad for years throughout Syria’s civil battle. Riyadh will ship a delegation to the nation quickly, Syria’s ambassador within the Saudi capital mentioned.
During his assembly with visiting Lebanese Druze chiefs Walid and Taymur Jumblatt, Sharaa mentioned Syria will not exert “detrimental interference in Lebanon in any respect”.
He added that Damascus “respects Lebanon’s sovereignty, the unity of its territories, the independence of its choices and its safety stability”.
Syria “will keep at equal distance from all” in Lebanon, Sharaa added, acknowledging that Syria has been a “supply of worry and anxiousness” for the nation.
Walid Jumblatt, lengthy a fierce critic of Assad and his father Hafez who dominated Syria earlier than him, arrived in Damascus Sunday on the head of a delegation of lawmakers from his parliamentary bloc and Druze non secular figures.
The Druze non secular minority is unfold throughout Lebanon, Syria and Israel.
Walid Jumblatt accuses the previous Syrian authorities of getting assassinated his father in 1977 throughout Lebanon’s civil battle.
The Syrian military entered Lebanon in 1976, solely leaving in 2005 after huge stress following the assassination of former prime minister Rafic Hariri, a killing attributed to Damascus and its ally, Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group.
– ‘Insecurity’ –
Assad was an adherent of the Alawite offshoot of Shiite Islam and projected himself as a protector of the nation’s non secular and ethnic minorities.
The seizure of energy by the Sunni Islamists of HTS — proscribed as a terrorist organisation by many governments together with the United States — has sparked concern, although the group has lately sought to reasonable its rhetoric.
Despite worries over Syria’s future, international powers together with the United States and the European Union have stepped up contacts with the war-ravaged nation’s new leaders, urging them to ensure protections for girls and minorities.
The international leaders have additionally pressured the significance of combating “terrorism and extremism”.
The supreme chief of Iran — a significant backer of Assad’s administration earlier than it fell — on Sunday predicted “the emergence of a robust, honourable group” that may stand in opposition to “insecurity” in Syria.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei mentioned Syria’s younger males would “stand with energy and willpower in opposition to those that have designed this insecurity and those that have applied it, and God prepared, he’ll overcome them”.
Assad had lengthy performed a strategic position in Iran’s “axis of resistance”, a free alliance of regional proxy forces, notably in facilitating the availability of weapons to Hezbollah in neighbouring Lebanon.
That axis has suffered heavy blows over the previous yr with Israel’s decimation of the management of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
Khamenei nonetheless denied that these armed teams acted as proxies, including that: “If sooner or later we wish to take motion, we don’t want a proxy drive.”
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