Will Syria normalise relations with Israel?
There are reports of talks between Syria and Israel, with timelines even being floated for potential normalisation between the two countries, which have technically been at war since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
Here's what you need to know about possible normalisation between Syria and Israel:
What has happened so far?
Syria and Israel have held direct talks, according to Israeli media, about potentially entering into a normalisation agreement.
Communication between the two states has reportedly been facilitated by the United Arab Emirates, which established a backchannel for contact.
Any agreement would likely be an extension of the Abraham Accords, an agreement brokered by the United States between some Arab states and Israel.
The Abraham Accords were a top-down approach by Donald Trump during his first term as US president to get Arab states to formalise relations with Israel.
They were signed in August and September 2020 by the UAE and Bahrain, and soon followed by Sudan and Morocco.
Since then, Trump has worked to expand the accords by pushing more countries to sign agreements with Israel.
Trump visited three countries in the Middle East in May, and, while in Saudi Arabia, he met Syria's new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, and reportedly encouraged him to normalise relations with Israel.
Is normalisation possible?
Possibly down the road, analysts say, but right now it would be nearly impossible, according to Syrian writer and author Robin Yassin-Kassab.
There is a deep enmity between Syria and Israel, which heightened during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and Israel's occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights.
Israeli Defence Minister Gideon Saar said his country would insist on its occupation of the Golan Heights in any deal with Syria, and the Israeli army has gone deeper into the Golan, occupying homes and expelling people from the area.
Many Syrians would oppose giving up the Golan to Israel, according to analysts. Still, many might welcome common-sense negotiations.
'Syrians are split … because on the one hand people are exhausted, everyone recognises Syria cannot defend itself or fight Israel … so it's good [al-Sharaa's] negotiating,' Yassin-Kassab said, adding that a return to an agreement like the 1974 ceasefire is the most realistic option.
About a week after then-President Bashar al-Assad fled Syria in December 2024, Israel's parliament voted on a plan to expand settlements in Syria – illegal under international law. There are currently more than 31,000 Israeli settlers in the occupied Golan Heights.
Syria, under al-Sharaa, has said it is open to peace with Israel and that it would uphold a 1974 ceasefire agreement between the two states, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on December 8 – the day al-Assad fled to Moscow – that he viewed the agreement as void.
Israel attacked Syria repeatedly, destroying much of its military infrastructure and seizing Syrian territory near the border with Syria's Golan Heights.
Syria would likely ask for Israel to withdraw from the newly occupied area under a new non-aggression deal, though reports say the Golan Heights have not yet been discussed.
What moves have been made lately?
In recent days, Israeli officials have said they are open to a deal with Syria, and Netanyahu reportedly asked US Special Envoy Tom Barrack to help negotiate one.
Israel's National Security Council head, Tzachi Hanegbi, has reportedly been overseeing discussions with Syrian officials. The talks include a US presence and are in 'advanced stages', according to senior Israeli officials who spoke to The Times of Israel.
Figures close to al-Sharaa are reportedly asking for an end to Israeli aggression without Syria having to accept full normalisation, Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar reported.
What would Syria want from talks with Israel?
Syria wants the Israeli attacks on Syrian territory to cease.
There are concerns over Israel's expanded occupation of the Golan Heights among many Syrians; however, it's unclear if al-Sharaa's government will demand the return of the occupied parts.
Syria would, however, want Israel to pull out of the Golan proper and the parts it occupied over the last year.
Israel also threatened the new Syrian government not to deploy soldiers south of Damascus, a region near its border with Israel.
Israel has also tried to stoke sectarianism in this area, threatening to intervene to 'protect the Syrian Druze' during sectarian-driven tensions between groups affiliated with the new Syrian government and Syria's minority Druze community.
While many in the Druze community have shown a distrust of Syria's new government, many have also denounced Israel's threats of intervention as a calculated stunt to cause further discord among Syrians.
What would Israel want?
Netanyahu reportedly wants a security agreement – an update on the 1974 text – with a framework towards a total peace plan with Syria.
US envoy Barrack claims the issue between Syria and Israel is 'solvable' and has suggested they begin with a 'non-aggression agreement', according to Axios.
Such a continued occupation of the Golan would likely upset many Syrians.
'It's too politically difficult [for al-Sharaa], even under American pressure and the continued threat of violence from Israel,' Yassin-Kassab said.
Israel also reportedly has additional conditions: no Turkish military bases in Syria, no presence of Iran or Iranian-backed groups like Hezbollah, and the demilitarisation of southern Syria.
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Al Jazeera
22 minutes ago
- Al Jazeera
UN report lists companies complicit in Israel's ‘genocide': Who are they?
The United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) has released a new report mapping the corporations aiding Israel in the displacement of Palestinians and its genocidal war on Gaza, in breach of international law. Francesca Albanese's latest report, which is scheduled to be presented at a news conference in Geneva on Thursday, names 48 corporate actors, including United States tech giants Microsoft, Alphabet Inc. – Google's parent company – and Amazon. A database of more than 1000 corporate entities was also put together as part of the investigation. '[Israel's] forever-occupation has become the ideal testing ground for arms manufacturers and Big Tech – providing significant supply and demand, little oversight, and zero accountability – while investors and private and public institutions profit freely,' the report said. 'Companies are no longer merely implicated in occupation – they may be embedded in an economy of genocide,' it said, in a reference to Israel's ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip. In an expert opinion last year, Albanese said there were 'reasonable grounds' to believe Israel was committing genocide in the besieged Palestinian enclave. The report stated that its findings illustrate 'why Israel's genocide continues'. 'Because it is lucrative for many,' it said. What arms and tech companies were identified in the report? Israel's procurement of F-35 fighter jets is part of the world's largest arms procurement programme, relying on at least 1,600 companies across eight nations. It is led by US-based Lockheed Martin, but F-35 components are constructed globally. Italian manufacturer Leonardo S.p.A is listed as a main contributor in the military sector, while Japan's FANUC Corporation provides robotic machinery for weapons production lines. The tech sector, meanwhile, has enabled the collection, storage and governmental use of biometric data on Palestinians, 'supporting Israel's discriminatory permit regime', the report said. Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon grant Israel 'virtually government-wide access to their cloud and AI technologies', enhancing its data processing and surveillance capacities. The US tech company IBM has also been responsible for training military and intelligence personnel, as well as managing the central database of Israel's Population, Immigration and Borders Authority (PIBA) that stores the biometric data of Palestinians, the report said. It found US software platform Palantir Technologies expanded its support to the Israeli military since the start of the war on Gaza in October 2023. The report said there were 'reasonable grounds' to believe the company provided automatic predictive policing technology used for automated decision-making in the battlefield, to process data and generate lists of targets including through artificial intelligence systems like 'Lavender', 'Gospel' and 'Where's Daddy?' What other companies are identified in the report? The report also lists several companies developing civilian technologies that serve as 'dual-use tools' for Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory. These include Caterpillar, Leonardo-owned Rada Electronic Industries, South Korea's HD Hyundai and Sweden's Volvo Group, which provide heavy machinery for home demolitions and the development of illegal settlements in the West Bank. Rental platforms Booking and Airbnb also aid illegal settlements by listing properties and hotel rooms in Israeli-occupied territory. The report named the US's Drummond Company and Switzerland's Glencore as the primary suppliers of coal for electricity to Israel, originating primarily from Colombia. In the agriculture sector, Chinese Bright Dairy & Food is a majority owner of Tnuva, Israel's largest food conglomerate, which benefits from land seized from Palestinians in Israel's illegal outposts. Netafim, a company providing drip irrigation technology that is 80-percent owned by Mexico's Orbia Advance Corporation, provides infrastructure to exploit water resources in the occupied West Bank. Treasury bonds have also played a critical role in funding the ongoing war on Gaza, according to the report, with some of the world's largest banks, including France's BNP Paribas and the UK's Barclays, listed as having stepped in to allow Israel to contain the interest rate premium despite a credit downgrade. Who are the main investors behind these companies? The report identified US multinational investment companies BlackRock and Vanguard as the main investors behind several listed companies. BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, is listed as the second largest institutional investor in Palantir (8.6 percent), Microsoft (7.8 percent), Amazon (6.6 percent), Alphabet (6.6 percent) and IBM (8.6 per cent), and the third largest in Lockheed Martin (7.2 percent) and Caterpillar (7.5 percent). Vanguard, the world's second-largest asset manager, is the largest institutional investor in Caterpillar (9.8 percent), Chevron (8.9 percent) and Palantir (9.1 percent), and the second largest in Lockheed Martin (9.2 percent) and Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems (2 percent). Are companies profiting from dealing with Israel? The report states that 'colonial endeavours and their associated genocides have historically been driven and enabled by the corporate sector.' Israel's expansion on Palestinian land is one example of 'colonial racial capitalism', where corporate entities profit from an illegal occupation. Since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023, 'entities that previously enabled and profited from Palestinian elimination and erasure within the economy of occupation, instead of disengaging are now involved in the economy of genocide,' the report said. For foreign arms companies, the war has been a lucrative venture. Israel's military spending from 2023 to 2024 surged 65 percent, amounting to $46.5bn – one of the highest per capita worldwide. Several entities listed on the exchange market – particularly in the arms, tech and infrastructure sectors – have seen their profits rise since October 2023. The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange also rose an unprecedented 179 percent, adding $157.9bn in market value. Global insurance companies, including Allianz and AXA, invested large sums in shares and bonds linked to Israel's occupation, the report said, partly as capital reserves but primarily to generate returns. Booking and Airbnb also continue to profit from rentals in Israeli-occupied land. Airbnb briefly delisted properties on illegal settlements in 2018 but later reverted to donating profits from such listings to humanitarian causes, a practice the report referred to as 'humanitarian-washing'. Are private companies liable under international law? According to Albanese's report, yes. Corporate entities are under an obligation to avoid violating human rights through direct action or in their business partnerships. States have the primary responsibility to ensure that corporate entities respect human rights and must prevent, investigate and punish abuses by private actors. However, corporations must respect human rights even if the state where they operate does not. A company must therefore assess whether activities or relationships throughout its supply chain risk causing human rights violations or contributing to them, according to the report. The failure to act in line with international law may result in criminal liability. Individual executives can be held criminally liable, including before international courts. The report called on companies to divest from all activities linked to Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory, which is illegal under international law. In July 2024, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion ruling that Israel's continued presence in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem should come to an end 'as rapidly as possible'. In light of this advisory opinion, the UN General Assembly demanded that Israel bring to an end its unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory by September 2025. Albanese's report said the ICJ's ruling 'effectively qualifies the occupation as an act of aggression … Consequently, any dealings that support or sustain the occupation and its associated apparatus may amount to complicity in an international crime under the Rome Statute. 'States must not provide aid or assistance or enter into economic or trade dealings, and must take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that would assist in maintaining the illegal situation created by Israel in the oPt.'
Al Jazeera
2 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
By sacrificing Palestine, Europe betrays itself
'Law is interpreted for friends and applied to enemies,' Italian statesman Giovanni Giolitti once said. There are few better examples of this than the way the European Union bends over backwards to avoid addressing Israel's severe breaches of international law and the terms of its association agreement with the bloc. On May 20, the EU's Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) voted to conduct a review of whether Israel was denying Palestinians' human rights by preventing humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. A month later, the same body concluded: 'There are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations under Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement.' Indications … On June 26, EU heads of government at a European Council meeting concluded that they 'noted' those indications and invited the FAC to 'continue discussions' in July. It is understandable that some initially welcomed the vote to review the EU-Israel Association Agreement back in May. It is only human to hold on to anything that gives hope that action will finally be taken to protect the human rights of the Palestinian people. Unfortunately, the entire 'debate' over the EU-Israel Association Agreement is simply a sham. It does not represent serious action on by the EU to address the atrocities Israel is committing in Gaza and elsewhere in the occupied Palestinian territory. It deflects growing criticism by giving the impression that the EU may finally be thinking of doing something. More importantly, it distracts from the obligations which the EU and its members are legally bound to fulfil. Human rights pretences Twenty months into Israel's devastating war in Gaza, Israel's breaches of human rights and international law are so extensive that there can be no doubt about their relevance to the EU-Israel Association Agreement. They are so numerous that they must be organised into categories to capture the depth and breadth of destruction wrought onto every aspect of life in Gaza. Israel has been accused of intentionally creating conditions calculated to destroy the possibility for Palestinian life in the Strip, which amounts to genocide. This includes domicide and the laying to waste of Gaza's urban landscape; medicide – systematically dismantling the healthcare system; scholasticide – destroying schools, universities and libraries; ecocide – wiping out Gaza's agriculture and nature; econocide – the devastation of Gaza's economy; and unchilding – making childhood impossible. More than 90 percent of Gaza's population, or 1.9 million people, have been displaced, and in the past three months alone, over 600,000 people have been displaced again, as many as 10 times or more. A full blockade was imposed by the Israelis since March 2, and meagre aid deliveries were reinstated only in late May. Famine is widespread; 66 children have died of starvation, and more than 5,000 were hospitalised with acute malnutrition in May alone. Under pressure from European public opinion, which is increasingly rejecting European support for Israel, the EU finally decided to do something. But that something involved a fair bit of talking and – so far – no action. The bloc decided to vote on reviewing the EU-Israel Association Agreement. But this was nothing out of the ordinary because all association agreements should be subject to regular reviews, which can trigger either advances or scaling back the depth and breadth of relations. In fact, those who called for the vote knew very well that suspension of the agreement requires a unanimous vote by 27 member states, which is currently impossible. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and member states, such as Germany, Italy and Hungary, have made crystal clear their unwavering support for Israel. In these circumstances, hoping for a unanimous vote to suspend the agreement is close to delusional. A qualified majority vote might suspend parts of the agreement on trade, but that is the most one can hope for. This is hardly a ringing endorsement of the Union's commitment to human rights and 'fundamental values'. Instead, public invocations by governments and officials of Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which states that all areas covered by the agreement itself 'shall be based on respect for human rights', are no more than empty rhetoric. In reality, the EU never intended for these human rights conditionalities to be taken seriously. It is easy to see why; it never specified by what criteria human rights should be assessed, and it chose not to make these assessments routine, compulsory, and public. In this way, the EU leaves itself enough space to claim it values 'human rights and fundamental values' while, in fact, 'interpreting away' its own rules to avoid having to take any significant action. Empty rhetoric Some European states have decided to take individual action, but what they have done has been just as meaningless as the EU agreement review. The United Kingdom suspended trade talks with Israel, but not trade. Its recent communique alongside France and Canada was trumpeted as 'tougher' than the EU's statements. Yet, the communique opposes only Israel's 'expansion of military operations in Gaza': It takes issue only with the extension and intensification of Israel's assault, not with the devastation wrought upon the Strip so far. Nor does it mention the war crimes Israel has been accused of, or declare a commitment to uphold the International Criminal Court's (ICC) arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. In fact, despite the UK summoning Israel's ambassador after its 'tough' joint statement with France and Canada, it continued its surveillance flights over or close to Gaza's airspace, which are suspected of gathering intelligence for the Israeli army. France, for its part, declared it would recognise a Palestinian state in June. June came and went without recognition. In October 2023, Spain claimed that it stopped selling weapons to Israel. In May, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez declared, 'We do not do business with a genocidal state.' And yet, a Barcelona-based think tank revealed recently the existence of more than 40 contracts between Spanish state institutions and Israeli defence companies. Germany, France, the UK and Italy also continue to supply weapons in breach of the spirit of international law. Legal obligations If European governments were serious about responding to Israel's crimes, they could do that by simply abiding by their legal obligations under the various EU treaties and international law. The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the Lisbon Treaty require the bloc to embed respect for 'democracy, human rights and fundamental values' into all EU policies. This is why all association agreements have human rights conditionalities in the first place. The Genocide Convention imposes a preventive duty to use 'all means reasonably available' to prevent genocide. Already in January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accepted that Palestinians' right to be protected from genocide may be being violated. The actions EU states can take include, but are not limited to: halting arms contracts with the Israeli government and Israeli companies; suspending intelligence cooperation; and cutting commercial, cultural and research exchanges with and funding for Israeli private and public institutions on occupied Palestinian land. They should also support the rigorous application of international law, including backing the case against Israel at the ICJ and enforcing arrest warrants issued by the ICC. Currently, the EU is in flagrant violation of its legal duties and its own rules. That is a direct consequence of decades of ignoring gross abuses by Israel and other associated states, including Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt. No amount of 'interpreting' law or hiding behind procedure can mask the fact that the EU is in flagrant violation of its legal obligations and the spirit of its own rules. It has a track record of ignoring continued human rights abuses in associated states, including Israel, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, and Jordan. This track record has reached an ignominious peak since October 2023. Inaction on Gaza reveals the limits of Europe's commitment to its self-proclaimed values: by sacrificing Palestine, Europe betrays itself. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.
Al Jazeera
3 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Turning point or pointless turn: Will DR Congo-Rwanda deal bring peace?
Cape Town, South Africa – Five months ago, with a single social media post, United States President Donald Trump put half a million people in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) at risk when he announced the closure of USAID – the single biggest aid donor in the country. A few days ago in Washington, DC, the same administration claimed credit for extricating the Congolese people from a decades-long conflict often described as the deadliest since World War II. This year alone, thousands of people have died and hundreds of thousands have been displaced. While the White House may be celebrating its diplomatic triumph in brokering a peace deal between tense neighbours DRC and Rwanda, for sceptical observers and people caught up in conflict and deprivation in eastern DRC, the mood is bound to be far more muted, experts say. 'I think a lot of ordinary citizens are hardly moved by the deal and many will wait to see if there are any positives to come out of it,' said Michael Odhiambo, a peace expert for Eirene International in Uvira in eastern DRC, where 250,000 displaced people lost access to water due to Trump's aid cutbacks. Odhiambo suggests that for Congolese living in towns controlled by armed groups – like the mineral-rich area of Rubaya, held by M23 rebels – US involvement in the war may cause anxiety, rather than relief. 'There is fear that American peace may be enforced violently as we have seen in Iran. Many citizens simply want peace and even though [this is] dressed up as a peace agreement, there is fear it may lead to future violence that could be justified by America protecting its business interests.' The agreement, signed by the Congolese and Rwandan foreign ministers in Washington on Friday, is an attempt to staunch the bleeding in a conflict that has raged in one form or another since the 1990s. At the signing, Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe called it a 'turning point', while his Congolese counterpart, Therese Kayikwamba Wagner, said the moment had 'been long in coming'. 'It will not erase the pain, but it can begin to restore what conflict has robbed many women, men and children of – safety, dignity and a sense of future,' Wagner said. Trump has meanwhile said he deserves to be lauded for bringing the parties together, even suggesting that he deserves a Nobel prize for his efforts. While the deal does aim to quell decades of brutal conflict, observers point to concerns with the fine print: That it was also brokered after Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi said in March that he was willing to partner with the US on a minerals-for-security deal. Experts say US companies hope to gain access to minerals like tantalum, gold, cobalt, copper and lithium that they desperately need to meet the demand for technology and beat China in the race for Africa's natural resources. But this has raised fears among critics that the US's main interest in the agreement is to further foreign extraction of eastern DRC's rare earth minerals, which could lead to a replay of the violence seen in past decades, instead of a de-escalation. M23 and FDLR: Will armed groups fall in line? The main terms of the peace deal – which is also supported by Qatar – require Kinshasa and Kigali to establish a regional economic integration framework within 90 days and form a joint security coordination mechanism within 30 days. Additionally, the DRC should facilitate the disengagement of the armed group, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), after which Rwanda will lift its 'defensive measures' inside the DRC. According to the United Nations and other international rights groups, there are about 3,000 to 4,000 Rwandan troops on the ground in eastern DRC, as Kigali actively backs M23 rebels who have seized key cities in the region this year. Rwanda has repeatedly denied these claims. M23 is central to the current conflict in eastern DRC. The rebel group, which first took up arms in 2012, was temporarily defeated in 2013 before it reemerged in 2022. This year, it made significant gains, seizing control of the capitals of both North Kivu and South Kivu provinces in January and February. Although separate Qatar-led mediation efforts are under way regarding the conflict with M23, the rebel group is not part of this agreement signed last week. 'This deal does not concern M23. M23 is a Congolese issue that is going to be discussed in Doha, Qatar. This is a deal between Rwanda and DRC,' Gatete Nyiringabo Ruhumuliza, a Rwandan political commentator, told Al Jazeera's Inside Story, explaining that the priority for Kigali is the neutralisation of the FDLR – which was established by Hutus linked to the killings of Tutsis in the 1994 Rwanda genocide. 'Rwanda has its own defensive mechanisms [in DRC] that have nothing to do with M23,' Ruhumuliza said, adding that Kigali will remove these mechanisms only once the FDLR is dealt with. But the omission of M23 from the US-brokered process points to one of the potential cracks in the deal, experts say. 'The impact of the agreement may be more severe on the FDLR as it explicitly requires that it ceases to exist,' said Eirene International's Odhiambo. 'The M23, however, is in a stronger position given the leverage they have from controlling Goma and Bukavu and the income they are generating in the process.' The US-brokered process requires the countries to support ongoing efforts by Qatar to mediate peace between the DRC and M23. But by including this, the deal also 'seems to temper its expectations regarding the M23″, Odhiambo argues. Additionally, 'M23 have the capacity to continue to cause mayhem even if Rwanda decided to act against it,' he said. 'Therefore, I think the agreement will not in itself have a major impact on the M23.' In terms of the current deal's effect on the two countries, both risk being exposed for their role in the conflict, he added. 'I think that if Rwanda manages to prevail on the M23 as anticipated by the deal, it may prove the long-suspected proxy relationship between them.' For DRC, he said Kinshasa executing the terms of the agreement will not augur well for the FDLR, but suggested calls to neutralise them may be a tall order. 'If [Kinshasa] manage to do it, then they remove Rwanda's justification for its activities in the DRC. But to do so may be a big ask given the capacity of the FARDC [DRC military], and failure to do so will feed into the narrative of a dysfunctional and incapable state. Therefore, I think the DRC has more at stake than Rwanda.' On the other hand, Tshisekedi's government could score political points, according to Jakob Kerstan, DRC country director for the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Foundation (KAS), which promotes democracy and the rule of law. 'The sentiment … of the Congolese population, it's very much like the conflict has been left behind: No one really cares in the world; the Congo is only being exploited, and so on. And the fact that there is now a global power caring about the DRC … I think this is a gain,' he said. He feels there is also less pressure on Kinshasa's government today than earlier this year when M23 was first making its rapid advance. 'There are no protests any more. Of course, people are angry about the situation [in the east], but they kind of accept [it]. And they know that militarily they won't be able to win it. The Kinshasa government, they know it as well.' 'Peace for exploitation'? Although Kinshasa appears to have readily offered the US access to the country's critical minerals in exchange for security, many observers on the continent find such a deal concerning. Congolese analyst Kambale Musavuli told Africa Now Radio that reports of the possible allocation of billions of dollars worth of minerals to the US, was the 'Berlin Conference 2.0″, referring to the 19th-century meeting during which European powers divided up Africa. Musavuli also bemoaned the lack of accountability for human rights abuses. Meanwhile, Congolese Nobel laureate Denis Mukwege called the agreement a 'scandalous surrender of sovereignty' that validated foreign occupation, exploitation, and decades of impunity. An unsettling undertone of the deal is 'the spectre of resource exploitation, camouflaged as diplomatic triumph', said political commentator Lindani Zungu, writing in an op-ed for Al Jazeera. 'This emerging 'peace for exploitation' bargain is one that African nations, particularly the DRC, should never be forced to accept in a postcolonial world order.' Meanwhile, for others, the US may be the ones who end up with a raw deal. KAS's Kerstan believes Trump's people may have underestimated the complexities of doing business in the DRC – which has scared off many foreign companies in the past. Even those who welcome this avenue towards peace acknowledge that the situation remains fragile. Alexandria Maloney, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's US-based Africa Center, praised the Trump deal for combining diplomacy, development and strategic resource management. However, she warned against extraction without investment in infrastructure, skills and environmental safeguards. 'Fragile governance structures in eastern DRC, particularly weak institutional capacity and fragmented local authority, could undercut enforcement or public trust,' Maloney told the think tank's website. Furthermore, China's 'entrenched footprint in the DRC's mining sector may complicate implementation and heighten geopolitical tensions', she added. For analysts, the most optimistic assessments about the US's role in this process appear to say: Thank goodness the Americans stepped in; while the least optimistic say: Are they in over their heads? Overall, this Congo peace agreement seems to have few supporters outside multilateral diplomatic fora such as the UN and the African Union. For many, the biggest caution is the exclusion of Congolese people and civil society organisations – which is where previous peace efforts have also failed. 'I have no hopes at all [in this deal],' said Vava Tampa, the founder of grassroots Congolese antiwar charity Save the Congo. 'There isn't much difference between this deal and the dozens of other deals that have been made in the past,' he told Al Jazeera's Inside Story. 'This deal does two things really: It denies Congolese people – Congolese victims and survivors – justice; and simultaneously it also fuels impunity,' he said, calling instead for an international criminal tribunal for Congo and for perpetrators of violence in both Kigali and Kinshasa to be held accountable. 'Peace begins with justice,' Tampa said. 'You cannot have peace or stability without justice.'
