Latest news with #SyrianNationalCoalition
The National
22-07-2025
- Politics
- The National
Is peace in three years possible in the Middle East?
The northern rim of the Arab world is a mess, any way you look at it. Some US politicians, echoing Israel's position, speak glibly (and dishonestly) of a transformed or new regional order. In reality, the situation has worsened. Israel has accelerated its war on Gaza, its violent land-grabbing in the West Bank and occupations and deadly bombings of Lebanon and Syria. Meanwhile, Palestinians are without inspired leadership capable of projecting a strategic vision. Instead, they are mired in the muck of failed ideologies or imposed structures of governance. Before anyone can speak of a transformed Middle East, two things must occur: Israel's occupations and out-of-control brutal behaviour must be stopped, and new Arab leadership must emerge that can project a vision for the future that can inspire and transform the politics of Lebanon, Syria and Palestine. This discussion of vision reminds me of a meeting I had a decade ago at my office with the leader of the Syrian National Coalition. Our exchange was pleasant and yet unmemorable – until he was about to leave. He paused at the doorway and turned to ask me: 'What is your long-term vision for the region – from Iraq to Lebanon? And what do you see for us in the next three years?' These are exactly the questions that should be asked and answered by leaders on all levels of government and civil society across the Middle East. It is critically important to have a broad strategic vision of the future that embodies the values and aspirations of your people. And it is equally important to be able to project how that vision can be implemented in the short term. It is critically important to have a broad strategic vision of the future that embodies the values and aspirations of your people My initial response was a bit flippant, saying that looking 100 years down the road I can see an Arab boy from Amman marrying an Israeli girl from Tel Aviv and taking a job and settling down in the suburbs of Damascus. I quickly added that what I meant was that I envisioned a region at peace with itself, with integrated societies, economies, and open borders (or no borders at all) allowing for the free movement of people and commerce. Given the bloody wars of the past several decades and continuing tumult and tension, such a vision might appear fanciful. Naysayers will go so far as to argue that it is not in the genetic makeup of either side to ever accept peace or integration. But I'm convinced they are wrong. No group of people is uniquely indisposed to peace and integration, and no people are immune from the inevitable pressures of history. In this regard, the Middle East is no exception. It's true that the region is plagued by war and upheaval, but which region of the world hasn't been so plagued? The same despair was once widespread across Europe. That continent had, for centuries, been the setting for bloody conflicts pitting nations and sects against each other, culminating in the 20th century's two devastating World Wars. Who, in the midst of those horrors, could have imagined a Europe at peace with itself? In the past few decades, Europe formed an economic union and then ended a Cold War that had divided the continent. Though still not a 'perfect union', the profound and positive transformations that have occurred and are still unfolding across that once-tormented region are impossible to ignore. What is important is that, in the midst of conflict, people be given a vision of the future and the possibility of change, precisely so that they do not surrender to despair. Projecting such a vision can inspire and motivate societies to move forward, rejecting the paralysis that comes from feeling trapped by present-day 'realities'. By projecting a progressive vision of the future, leaders are also able to present a stark contrast between the idea of the world they seek to create with notions advocated by those operating without such a vision. When applied to the conflicts raging across the Levant, the matter becomes clearer. What, for example, would be Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 's or Hamas 's visions of the future? And who would want to live in the future projected either by the past or current Syrian leadership? Is there anyone who hopes that 100 years from now Lebanon is still divided by sect, with power monopolised by the same families who have governed their clans or regions for the past century? Having a progressive vision of the future allows one to challenge those who can't think beyond the dead-end constraints of the present. It rejects those who for reasons of power and personal privilege want to freeze current realities or elevate them to the status of the eternal, and those whose blasphemous distortions of religion cause them to envision the future as a return to an idealised past. Thinking about the future means we do not create 'false idols' of the past or present, or become so arrogant that we project our ideologies onto God, seeking to validate our whims and fancy. It also requires that we reject the temptation to use means that contradict the very ends we seek to accomplish. This leads me to consider my Syrian friend's second, no less important question: to envision the Levant in three years' time. This more difficult challenge forces us to directly confront the constraints of the present. I believe that 100 years from now there will be no latter-day 'Al Assad' on the scene, no 'religious' fanatics tormenting the 'less pure,' and no clan leaders or ultra-nationalists – precisely the characters who define life today. They must be defeated, but how they are defeated matters. That's why a future vision based on values is important. Fighting evil with evil, repression with repression, and fanaticism with fanaticism, are no-win propositions. New ideas matter and so do means by which to bring those ideas to life. I thank my Syrian friend for asking his thoughtful questions and for the discussion that followed. It provided us both with an opportunity to reflect on means, ends and goals. The very fact that he asked these questions made me appreciate his leadership. I would love to hear this challenge put to other leaders, on all levels, across the Levant. Their answers would be revealing.
Arab News
12-03-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
Dissident former diplomat shot dead in southern Syria: monitor
BEIRUT: A former Syrian Arab Republic diplomat who defected from his service under the administration of toppled president Bashar Assad was shot dead alongside his brother in the country's south, a war monitor said on Wednesday. Armed men on Tuesday night entered the home of former diplomat, Noureddine Al-Labbad, in the town of Al-Sanamayn, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of Damascus, opening fire on him and his brother before fleeing, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The Britain-based monitor said Labbad had returned to Syria two weeks earlier from France, where he had represented the opposition's Syrian National Coalition after having served as a diplomat under Assad. He had defected from the foreign ministry service in 2013. Security forces declared a curfew in the town after cars were set alight and grenades were set off following the attack, an AFP journalist said. But by the morning it had been lifted with traffic gradually resuming. Videos shared on Telegram by Syrian security forces show gunmen entering what was described as Labbad's home. No further details were available regarding the killing of the former diplomat, but there have been frequent incidents involving tribal violence or acts of revenge in the past months, particularly since Assad's ouster in December.
The National
19-02-2025
- Politics
- The National
Britain's influence spreads through new Syria
The UK is wielding considerable influence in post-Assad Syria, through a combination of political connections, charity operations and a well-networked returning diaspora, The National can reveal. Britain's relations with the Syrian administration are understood to be good despite no ministerial visit. British-Syrians in Damascus hope it will lead to the lifting of sanctions to allow rebuilding and investment to begin after 14 years of war. Sources have disclosed to The National that the UK's National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell recently held a low-key meeting with the new administration, boosting suggestions that he will play a leading role in relations. Unlike ministers from Germany and France, the UK's Foreign Secretary David Lammy has yet to visit Damascus since the toppling of dictator Bashar Al Assad. France also hosted an international conference on Syria in December. There has been disappointment from the British-Syrian community about the UK's "low profile" on the issue. But the UK's long-standing support for the opposition in Syria, and envoy Ann Snow's recent engagement with the new administration, has placed UK relations on par with Germany and France, a former diplomat for the traditional Syrian opposition told The National. "The UK supported change since 2011 and they supported the opposition in many ways. The relationship and contact is there, and there is mutual understanding,' said Walid Saffour, who was exiled to the UK more than 40 years ago and represented the Syrian National Coalition in the UK in 2012, but is not involved in the new Syrian administration. Meanwhile, a new generation of British-Syrians are advising the new administration, although this is not connected to any UK government initiative. Syrians from civil society, political and legal support groups established by diaspora communities in the past 14 years are helping to shape the course of policy. Their expertise covers law, governance and preservation of civil freedom. The sharp increase in the number of well-attended conferences and workshops taking place in Syria since December indicates that those inside the country are hungry for political participation, paths to justice for victims of past crimes, and knowledge about how their country can be reshaped after more than five decades of one-family rule. Some Syrians who have returned are directly participating in the government. Among them is Razan Saffour, Mr Saffour's daughter, who became a prominent voice of the opposition during the civil war. She travelled with Syria's interim leader Ahmad Al Shara during his first official state visit to Saudi Arabia and sat in on the meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. She also accompanied Foreign Affairs Minister Asaad Al Shibani to the Munich Security Conference last week. Ms Saffour was born and raised in London, where she studied at the School of Oriental and African Studies. She travelled to Damascus for the first time in January with her father, and his partially destroyed childhood home in Homs was one of their first stops. Oxford-educated barrister Ibrahim Al Olabi was appointed as an adviser for human rights to the new administration. Mr Al Olabi practises at law firm Guernica 37 and is the founder of the UK-based NGO Syrian Legal Development Programme. He is widely regarded as being concerned with achieving justice for Syrians, having worked for years advising European governments and police forces on crimes related to Syria. He was part of the legal team advising The Netherlands on actions to bring the former Syrian regime to account for crimes involving torture. Mr Powell, who served as chief of staff during Tony Blair's premiership, was appointed to the role of National Security Adviser by the new Labour government in November, just weeks before the toppling of Mr Al Assad. His knowledge of Syria pre-dates the civil war. His brother, Lord Charles Powell, is a trustee of the Said Foundation, set up by British-Syrian businessman and philanthropist Wafic Said. Mr Said met Mr Al Shara in mid-January at the presidential palace in Damascus. This personal connection and the work done by the Said Foundation has given Mr Powell a long-standing and extensive knowledge of the country and the issues it faces, according to those who know him. Two sources confirmed a recent meeting between Mr Powell and Syria's new administration and it is thought he had established back-channel contact with Hayat Tahrir Al Sham before it took power via Inter Mediate, the negotiation and diplomacy charity he co-founded with Martin Griffiths, the founder and former director of the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Geneva. In 2021 it was claimed that Mr Powell had even met Mr Al Shara, although that was denied by the Syrian group. Mr Powell – who was the chief negotiator in Northern Ireland peace talks that led to the Good Friday agreement – is an advocate of engagement with terrorist groups and has said that the lessons from the Troubles can be applied to other conflicts. Britain's Foreign Office has for several years used paid contractors to help displaced Syrians return home, address community tension between Arabs and Kurds and report back to London on the situation in north-east Syria. Aims of UK-funded projects also included challenging Russian narratives and 'amplifying truth and the views of moderate Syrians', according to government documents. Taking the appropriate tone with the new regime will be key, according to former British Army officer Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, who has written extensively on Syria and has been in the country this month. He acknowledged the new government in Damascus 'does not need us to tell them what to do', but instead requires 'advice and resources' to ensure they can achieve their plans. Writing in The National, Mr de Bretton-Gordon said: 'It was ostensibly the British Syrian diaspora from the Syrian British Medical Society (SBMS) and Union of Syrian Medical Charities (UOSSM) who kept the medical facilities in Idlib running, giving the residents some hope and the will to carry on.' He visited the new Health Ministry and said it would like to replicate what SBMS did across the whole of Syria. 'Also, in the same vein they have asked the White Helmets, the civil emergency teams … to run the emergency services now country-wide,' he said. 'The revolution which toppled the old guard in Damascus grew out of north west Syria, and the interim President … appears to be a viable leader. The Syrians I know, some very close to the new team, tell me they are the real deal. 'Britain is uniquely placed through the British-Syrian diaspora to make a real difference, and opening the British Embassy in Damascus cannot happen soon enough.' British-Syrians hope developments will lead swiftly to a lifting of sanctions. Ghaith Armanazi, a British-Syrian diplomat and former ambassador to the Arab League in London, said members of the community had met with City firms keen on investing in Syria. 'An idea is being developed at the moment with members of the Syrian community promoting the idea of an international conference that would look into bringing investment into Syria,' Mr Armanazi told The National. "All areas of Syria need help: education, finance, energy and tourism. These areas are ripe for development and recovery from all these years of conflict." He also suggested that the UK could open offshoots of its schools and universities in Syria. 'One of the messages the new administration is projecting is how open they are and different from the socialist model of the [Assad regime],' Mr Armanazi said. The UK will debate easing restrictions applying to energy, transport and finance sectors, Foreign Office Minister Stephen Doughty said last week. But more radical measures were needed, said Mr Saffour. 'In the long term we have to lift sanctions altogether otherwise the situation in Syria will stay as it is. Refugees will not be able to go back. It is a country without services,' he said. The diaspora's input may also ensure that the desires and demands of a broad range of Syrian views are represented in building new institutions, policy planning, and the writing of a new constitution, potentially tempering the positions of more hardline, conservative officials who have joined Ahmad Al Shara's new administration in Damascus from HTS's former Syrian Salvation Government in Idlib. At the end of last month, 48 Syrian civil society organisations who had worked in opposition-held areas of the country and abroad held a meeting attended by Judge Khitam Haddad, caretaker deputy minister of Justice for Legal Affairs and Studies, at Damascus's Cham Palace hotel. The meeting proposed specific and urgent recommendations to the new authorities on initiating legal accountability and transitional justice processes, which, the groups said, were 'essential to prevent the country descending into civil conflict".
Voice of America
18-02-2025
- Politics
- Voice of America
Inclusivity, economic woes, and security challenge Syria post-Assad
Syria's top diplomat says the country has gained freedom while managing to avoid another civil war, but observers point to major challenges ahead, such as the dire economy, uncertain security, and including Syria's diverse population in decision-making and governance. Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani told the Munich Security Conference last weekend that the country's new leadership will set in place a government that reflects the will of the people. 'The Syrian people freed themselves by themselves. We are now putting the steps and principles to have a system that represents the people to be Syrian-led and Syria-owned. The dictatorship will not be repeated again,' he said. Al-Shibani said the country's Islamist interim leaders want 'to bring the whole Syrian society with us to prevent any actions that will break this stability and our achievement.' Bassam Said Ishak is president of the Syriac National Council of Syria, based in northeast Syria and representing Syriac Christians. He told VOA it is important for Christians and all minorities in a post-Assad government to be represented and respected. Ishak spoke about a national dialogue conference scheduled for next month. 'My worry is that they wind up with a conference that it does not magnify the real voices of these diverse Syrians. That's serious because this has been the traditional way. Assad did it this way. We just need a viable representation of everybody, whether it's a Kurd, Syriac, Druze, Alawi, Ismaili. We just need to hear these voices. We need to hear people who are different, of different opinion and think of real solutions,' he said. Syrian American lawyer Dima Moussa, who is a member of the Syrian National Coalition, an organization that promotes constitutional reforms, said the caretaker government is applying the Islamist principles it enforced when it ruled just Idlib province to the rest of the country. She told the Washington-based Arab Center recently the interim leaders have 'not yet completely come out of that mentality,' but she expressed optimism for the future. 'Inclusivity is probably one of the most important issues on the table today. And if it is not carefully and diligently worked on, especially at the national conference stage, it can set up for the reoccurrence and failure of many problems in the future. There have been some positive steps. They're getting lost amid the hardships of the living conditions and some incidents in some of the more sensitive areas that historically had sectarian tensions which were amplified during the last 14 years,' said Moussa. Some observers are concerned about a lack of clarity on how the new government will attempt to heal the still-divided country. Questions remain over Syria's future relations with Russia and Iran, and stalwart Assad supporters, as it pursues reintegration in the Arab fold. Meanwhile, Syria's economy is in tatters after nearly 14 years of civil war, widespread corruption under the Assad regime and sanctions by the West, including on its banking sector. U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen told the Munich Security Conference the Syrian interim government faces 'enormous humanitarian challenges' as 17 million refugees and internally displaced people try to return home. 'They need to see there if a future in Syria, and they need to see it quickly,' Pedersen warned.
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Key anti-Assad groups pledge support for Syria's new administration
Two major Syrian opposition groups who worked for years against the government of now-toppled dictator Bashar al-Assad have pledged support for the country's new administration. Representatives of the Syrian National Coalition and the Negotiation Commission voiced support for new interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who commanded an Islamist-led rebel offensive that deposed al-Assad in December, ending years of bloody civil war. Both groups met with al-Sharaa in Damascus on Tuesday and handed over files associated with their work, the Syrian presidency said late on Tuesday evening, amid speculation that the two blocs will announce their dissolution. Last month, the new administration announced it would abolish the 2012 constitution, dissolve parliament, disband all armed factions and integrate them into the state institutions. The Syrian National Coalition (SNC) was founded in Qatar in 2012 as an umbrella opposition organization and soon gained recognition by several countries as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people. The Negotiation Commission was created in 2015 as an umbrella political body of the opposition forces in Saudi Arabia that initially supported the rebellion against al-Assad's rule. The two blocs on Tuesday expressed support for Syria's new leadership to "reunify the country, achieve security and stability" and implement a transitional map leading to "fair and free elections," the Syrian presidency added in a statement, according to state news agency SANA. Private broadcaster Syria TV, which is close to Syria's new rulers, reported that SNC has closed its office in Istanbul. SNC is currently holding meetings with the new Syrian administration to discuss the fate of its employees and the possibility of integrating them into state institutions amid a likely move to disband the group, the broadcaster added. After his appointment as Syria's interim president last month, al-Sharaa promised to form an inclusive government, build strong state institutions in the war-shattered country and pave the way for free elections.
