MOSCOW/ANKARA: Syria would be divided into informal zones of regional power influence and Bashar Assad would remain president for at least a few years under an outline deal between Russia, Turkey and Iran, sources say.
Such a deal, which would allow regional autonomy within a federal structure controlled by Assad’s Alawite sect, is in its infancy, subject to change and would need the buy-in of Assad and the opposition fighters and, eventually, the Gulf states and the United States, sources familiar with Russia’s thinking say. “There has been a move toward a compromise,” said Andrey Kortunov, director general of the Russian International Affairs Council, a think-tank close to the Russian Foreign Ministry.
“A final deal will be hard, but stances have shifted.”
Assad’s powers would be cut under a deal between the three nations, say several sources. Russia and Turkey would allow him to stay until the next presidential election when he would quit in favor of a less polarizing Alawite candidate.
Iran has yet to be persuaded of that, say the sources. But either way, Assad would eventually go, in a face-saving way, with guarantees for him and his family. “A couple of names in the leadership have been mentioned (as potential successors),” said Kortunov, declining to name names.
Nobody thinks a wider Syrian peace deal, something that has eluded the international community for years, will be easy, quick or certain of success. What is clear is that President Vladimir Putin wants to play the lead role in trying to broker a settlement, initially with Turkey and Iran.
That would bolster his narrative of Russia regaining its mantle as a world power and serious Middle East player.
“It’s a very big prize for them if they can show they’re out there in front changing the world,” Sir Tony Brenton, Britain’s former ambassador to Moscow, told Reuters. “We’ve all grown used to the United States doing that and had rather forgotten that Russia used to play at the same level.”
If Russia gets its way, new peace talks between the Syrian regime and the opposition will begin in mid-January in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, a close Russian ally.
The talks would be distinct from intermittent UN-brokered negotiations and not initially involve the United States.
That has irritated some in Washington.
“So this country that essentially has an economy the size of Spain, that’s Russia, is strutting around and acting like they know what they are doing,” said one US official, who declined to be named because of the subject’s sensitivity.
“I don’t think the Turks and the Russians can do this (political negotiations) without us.”
Moscow got Iran to buy into the idea of a three-way peace push by getting Turkey to drop its demands for Assad to go soon, the same sources said.
“Our priority is not to see Assad go, but for terrorism to be defeated,” one senior Turkish government official, who declined to be named, said.
“It doesn’t mean we approve of Assad. But we have come to an understanding. When Daesh is wiped out, Russia may support Turkey in Syria finishing off the PKK.”
“Of course we have disagreements with Iran,” said the same Turkish official. “We view some issues differently, but we are coming to agreements to end mutual problems.”
Aydin Sezer, head of the Turkey and Russia Center of Studies, an Ankara-based think tank, said Turkey had now “completely given up the issue of regime change” in Syria.
Turkey’s public position remains strongly anti-Assad however and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Wednesday a political transition with Assad was impossible.
Brenton, Britain’s former ambassador, said Moscow and Ankara had done a deal because Moscow had needed Turkey to get the opposition out of Aleppo and to come to the negotiating table.
“The real flesh in the game the Turks have, and the fear they have, is of an autonomous Kurdistan emerging inside Syria that would have direct implications for them,” he said.
The shifting positions of Moscow and Ankara are driven by realpolitik. Russia doesn’t want to get bogged down in a long war and wants to hold Syria together and keep it as an ally.
Turkey wants to informally control a swathe of northern Syria giving it a safe zone to house refugees, a base for the anti-Assad opposition, and a bulwark against Kurdish influence.
Iran’s interests are harder to discern, but Ali Akbar Velayati, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s top adviser, said Aleppo’s fall might alter a lot in the region.
Russia, Turkey, Iran eye dicing Syria into zones of influence
Russia, Turkey, Iran eye dicing Syria into zones of influence
Gaza’s living conditions worsen as strong winds and hypothermia kill 5
- Hundreds of tents and makeshift shelters were blown away or heavily damaged, the UN humanitarian office reported
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Strong winter winds collapsed walls onto flimsy tents for Palestinians displaced by war in Gaza, killing at least four people, hospital authorities said Tuesday.
Dangerous living conditions persist in Gaza after more than two years of devastating Israeli bombardment and aid shortfalls. A ceasefire has been in effect since Oct. 10. But aid groups say that Palestinians broadly lack the shelter necessary to withstand frequent winter storms.
The dead include two women, a girl and a man, according to Shifa Hospital, Gaza City’s largest, which received the bodies.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Tuesday a 1-year-old boy died of hypothermia overnight, while the spokesman for the UN’s children agency said over 100 children and teenagers have been killed by “military means” since the ceasefire began.
Meanwhile, Israel’s military said it exchanged fire Tuesday with six people spotted near its troops deployed in southern Gaza, killing at least two of them in western Rafah.
Family mourns relatives killed by wall collapse
Three members of the same family — 72-year-old Mohamed Hamouda, his 15-year-old granddaughter and his daughter-in-law — were killed when an 8-meter (26-foot) high wall collapsed onto their tent in a coastal area along the Mediterranean shore of Gaza City, Shifa Hospital said. At least five others were injured.
Their relatives on Tuesday began removing the rubble that had buried their loved ones and rebuilding the tent shelters for survivors.
“The world has allowed us to witness death in all its forms,” Bassel Hamouda said after the funeral. “It’s true the bombing may have temporarily stopped, but we have witnessed every conceivable cause of death in the world in the Gaza Strip.”
A second woman was killed when a wall fell on her tent in the western part of the city, Shifa Hospital said.
Hundreds of tents and makeshift shelters were blown away or heavily damaged, the UN humanitarian office reported.
The UN and its humanitarian partners were distributing tents, tarps, blankets and clothes as well as nutrition and hygiene items across Gaza, said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The majority of Palestinians live in makeshift tents since their homes were reduced to rubble during the war. When storms strike the territory, Palestinian rescue workers warn people against seeking shelter inside damaged buildings for fears of collapse. Aid groups say not enough shelter materials are entering Gaza during the truce.
In the central town of Zawaida, Associated Press footage showed inundated tents Tuesday morning, with people trying to rebuild their shelters.
Yasmin Shalha, a displaced woman from the northern town of Beit Lahiya, stood against winds that lifted the tarps of tents around her as she stitched hers back together with needle and thread. She said it had fallen on top of her family the night before, as they slept.
“The winds were very, very strong. The tent collapsed over us,” the mother of five told AP. “As you can see, our situation is dire.”
On the shore in southern Gaza, tents were swept into the Mediterranean. Families pulled what was left from the sea, while some built sand barriers to hold back rising water.
“The sea took our mattresses, our tents, our food and everything we owned,” Shaban Abu Ishaq said, as he dragged part of his tent out of the sea in the Muwasi area of Khan Younis.
Mohamed Al-Sawalha, a 72-year-old man from the northern refugee camp of Jabaliya, said the conditions most Palestinians in Gaza endure are barely livable.
“It doesn’t work neither in summer nor in winter,” he said of the tent. “We left behind houses and buildings (with) doors that could be opened and closed. Now we live in a tent. Even sheep don’t live like we do.”
Residents aren’t able to return to their homes in Israeli-controlled areas of the Gaza Strip.
Child death toll in Gaza rises
Gaza’s Health Ministry said the 1-year-old in the central town of Deir Al-Balah was the seventh fatality due to the cold conditions since winter started. Others included a baby just seven days old and a 4-year-old girl, whose deaths were announced Monday.
The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, says more than 440 people were killed by Israeli fire and their bodies brought to hospitals since the ceasefire went into effect. The ministry maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts.
UNICEF spokesman James Elder said Tuesday at least 100 children under the age of 18 — 60 boys and 40 girls — have been killed since the truce began due to military operations, including drone strikes, airstrikes, tank shelling and use of live ammunition. Those figures, he said, reflect incidents where enough details have been compiled to warrant recording, but the total toll is expected to be higher. He said hundreds of children have been wounded.
While “bombings and shootings have slowed” during the ceasefire, they have not stopped, Elder told reporters at a UN briefing in Geneva by video from Gaza City. “So what the world now calls calm would be considered a crisis anywhere else,” he said.
Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people has been struggling to keep the cold weather and storms at bay while facing shortages of humanitarian aid and a lack of more substantial temporary housing, which is badly needed during the winter months. It’s the third winter since the war between Israel and Hamas started on Oct. 7, 2023, when militants stormed into southern Israel and killed around 1,200 people and abducted 251 others into Gaza.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 71,400 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive.
