ASTANA: Major powerbrokers agreed Friday to hold a peace congress for Syria in Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi in late January in a bid to speed up a political settlement for the war-torn country.
Sochi will host a “congress of national dialogue on Syria” on January 29 and 30, said a joint statement released after two days of talks spearheaded by Russia and Iran, both key backers of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime, and rebel-aligned Turkey.
The “Congress of National Dialogue” will see “the participation of all segments of Syrian society,” said the statement released in the Kazakh capital Astana.
“To this end three guarantors will hold a special preparation meeting in Sochi before the congress on 19-20 January,” it added, referring to Russia, Turkey and Iran.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been hoping to convert Moscow’s game-changing military intervention in Syria into a political settlement on his terms.
In November, he convened the leaders of Turkey and Iran in Sochi to discuss the plan for the peace conference.
While both Russian officials and Assad have spoken enthusiastically of the plan, rebel representatives have been wary and the UN has yet to firmly endorse it.
UN envoy Staffan de Mistura’s office acknowledged Friday the plan to hold the congress in January without throwing its full support behind it.
“The United Nations maintains its view that any political initiative by international actors should be assessed by its ability to contribute to and support the mandated political process under the United Nations in Geneva,” Mistura’s office said in a statement.
Mistura held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in Moscow on Thursday.
Representatives of the opposition have expressed fears the Sochi congress could prove a distraction from the UN negotiations.
The Astana talks have run in parallel to the negotiations taking place in Geneva with the backing of the United Nations, but neither set of talks have borne much fruit.
Since the start of Syria’s war in 2011, several diplomatic attempts to halt the conflict have stumbled, mainly over Assad’s future.
A previous attempt to convene the Sochi congress in November failed following a lack of agreement among prospective participants.
Turkey has said it will be opposed to any talks involving the Kurdish YPG militia of the Democratic Union Party (PYD). The Kremlin has however insisted that Turkey’s concerns would not stand in the way of the future peace conference.
Putin, who last week ordered the partial withdrawal of Russian troops from Syria, discussed the peace process with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the phone on Friday.
A fragile cease-fire brokered at the end of last year by Moscow and Ankara has been bolstered somewhat by the negotiations in Astana. The talks there have focussed on implementing four de-escalation zones to stem fighting between government and rebel forces, among other issues.
But both Damascus and the rebel factions have regularly accused one another of violating the cease-fire the zones were intended to bolster.
The second day of the talks in Astana coincided with the anniversary of a devastating and strategically crucial victory by Syrian forces in Aleppo, the country’s second-largest city and once a rebel stronghold, after a blistering Russian-backed offensive.
Since the victory over Aleppo, Damascus has consolidated control over much of the country, wresting territory from extremist factions not party to the truce, particularly the Islamic State Group.
The war in Syria has left more than 340,000 people dead, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Major powers seek to hold Sochi congress for Syria in late January
Major powers seek to hold Sochi congress for Syria in late January
Syrian military tells civilians to evacuate contested area east of Aleppo amid rising tensions
- Syria’s military has announced it will open a “humanitarian corridor” for civilians to evacuate from an area in Aleppo province
- This follows several days of intense clashes between government forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces
DAMASCUS: Syria’s military said it would open a corridor Thursday for civilians to evacuate an area of Aleppo province that has seen a military buildup following intense clashes between government and Kurdish-led forces in Aleppo city.
The army’s announcement late Wednesday — which said civilians would be able to evacuate through the “humanitarian corridor” from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday — appeared to signal plans for an offensive in the towns of Deir Hafer and Maskana and surrounding areas, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) east of Aleppo city.
The military called on the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and other armed groups to withdraw to the other side of the the Euphrates River, to the east of the contested zone.
Syrian government troops have already sent troop reinforcements to the area after accusing the SDF of building up its own forces there, which the SDF denied. There have been limited exchanges of fire between the two sides, and the SDF has said that Turkish drones carried out strikes there.
The government has accused the SDF of launching drone strikes in Aleppo city, including one that hit the Aleppo governorate building on Saturday shortly after two Cabinet ministers and a local official held a news conference there.
The tensions in the Deir Hafer area come after several days of intense clashes last week in Aleppo city that ended with the evacuation of Kurdish fighters and government forces taking control of three contested neighborhoods. The fighting killed at least 23 people, wounded dozens more, and displaced tens of thousands.
The fighting broke out as negotiations have stalled between Damascus and the SDF, which controls large swaths of northeast Syria, over an agreement to integrate their forces and for the central government to take control of institutions including border crossings and oil fields in the northeast.
Some of the factions that make up the new Syrian army, which was formed after the fall of former President Bashar Assad in a rebel offensive in December 2024, were previously Turkiye-backed insurgent groups that have a long history of clashing with Kurdish forces.
The SDF for years has been the main US partner in Syria in fighting against the Daesh group, but Turkiye considers the SDF a terrorist organization because of its association with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a long-running insurgency in Turkiye. A peace process is now underway.
Despite the long-running US support for the SDF, the Trump administration has also developed close ties with the government of interim Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa and has pushed the Kurds to implement the integration deal. Washington has so far avoided publicly taking sides in the clashes in Aleppo.
The SDF in a statement warned of “dangerous repercussions on civilians, infrastructure, and vital facilities” in case of a further escalation and said Damascus bears “full responsibility for this escalation and all ensuing humanitarian and security repercussions in the region.”
Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of US Central Command, said in a statement Tuesday that the US is “closely monitoring” the situation and called for “all parties to exercise maximum restraint, avoid actions that could further escalate tensions, and prioritize the protection of civilians and critical infrastructure.” He called on the parties to “return to the negotiating table in good faith.”
Al-Sharaa blasts the SDF
In a televised interview aired Wednesday, Al-Sharaa praised the “courage of the Kurds” and said he would guarantee their rights and wants them to be part of the Syrian army, but he lashed out at the SDF.
He accused the group of not abiding by an agreement reached last year under which their forces were supposed to withdraw from neighborhoods they controlled in Aleppo city and of forcibly preventing civilians from leaving when the army opened a corridor for them to evacuate amid the recent clashes.
Al-Sharaa claimed that the SDF refused attempts by France and the US to mediate a ceasefire and withdrawal of Kurdish forces during the clashes due to an order from the PKK.
The interview was initially intended to air Tuesday on Shams TV, a broadcaster based in Irbil — the seat of northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region — but was canceled for what the station initially said were technical reasons.
Later the station’s manager said that the interview had been spiked out of fear of further inflaming tensions because of the hard line Al-Sharaa took against the SDF.
Syria’s state TV station instead aired clips from the interview on Wednesday. There was no immediate response from the SDF to Al-Sharaa’s comments.
