DAMASCUS: Syrian Arab Republic President Ahmed Al-Sharaa said Monday that organizing elections could take up to five years, the week after he was appointed interim president and less than two months after ousting Bashar Assad.
“My estimate is that the period of time will be approximately between four and five years until the elections,” Sharaa said in a pre-recorded interview broadcast on a private Syrian television channel.
In late December, he told Al Arabiya TV the election process could take four years.
The infrastructure for the vote “needs to be re-established, and this takes time,” Sharaa added on Monday.
He also promised “a law regulating political parties,” adding that Syria would be “a republic with a parliament and an executive government.”
Military commanders last Wednesday appointed Sharaa interim president, after opposition factions toppled Assad on December 8, ending more than five decades of the family’s iron-fisted rule.
Sharaa’s appointment has been welcomed by key regional players Egypt, Qatar, Turkiye and Saudi Arabia.
Sharaa was also tasked with forming an interim legislature, and the Assad-era parliament was dissolved, along with the Baath party, which ruled Syria for decades.
Syria’s constitution was also repealed, and the Assad-era army and security forces were dissolved, as were armed groups, including Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham.
A transitional government has been installed to steer Syria until March 1.
Syrian president says elections could take up to five years
https://arab.news/mz8sy
Syrian president says elections could take up to five years
- Ahmed Al-Sharaa said infrastructure for the vote needs rebuilding
- A transitional government has been installed to steer Syria until March 1
Iran temporarily closes airspace to most flights
WASHINGTON: Iran temporarily closed its airspace to all flights except international ones to and from Iran with official permission at 5:15 p.m. ET on Wednesday, according to a notice posted on the Federal Aviation Administration’s website.
The prohibition is set to last for more than two hours until 7:30 p.m. ET, or 0030 GMT, but could be extended, the notice said. The United States was withdrawing some personnel from bases in the Middle East, a US official said on Wednesday, after a senior Iranian official said Tehran had warned neighbors it would hit American bases if Washington strikes.
Missile and drone barrages in a growing number of conflict zones represent a high risk to airline traffic. India’s largest airline, IndiGo said some of its international flights would be impacted by Iran’s sudden airspace closure. A flight by Russia’s Aeroflot bound for Tehran returned to Moscow after the closure, according to tracking data from Flightradar24.
Earlier on Wednesday, Germany issued a new directive cautioning the country’s airlines from entering Iranian airspace, shortly after Lufthansa rejigged its flight operations across the Middle East amid escalating tensions in the region.
The United States already prohibits all US commercial flights from overflying Iran and there are no direct flights between the countries. Airline operators like flydubai and Turkish Airlines have canceled multiple flights to Iran in the past week. “Several airlines have already reduced or suspended services, and most carriers are avoiding Iranian airspace,” said Safe Airspace, a website run by OPSGROUP, a membership-based organization that shares flight risk information.
“The situation may signal further security or military activity, including the risk of missile launches or heightened air defense, increasing the risk of misidentification of civil traffic.” Lufthansa said on Wednesday that it would bypass Iranian and Iraqi airspace until further notice while it would only operate day flights to Tel Aviv and Amman from Wednesday until Monday next week so that crew would not have to stay overnight.
Some flights could also be canceled as a result of these actions, it added in a statement. Italian carrier ITA Airways, in which Lufthansa Group is now a major shareholder, said that it would similarly suspend night flights to Tel Aviv until Tuesday next week.
