What shutdown of USAID programs means for vulnerable Arab countries

The Trump administration has slashed funding for aid and development projects, including in Gaza, but experts warn that ending USAID programs could fuel unrest, economic decline, and extremist recruitment. (AFP)
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Updated 09 March 2025
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What shutdown of USAID programs means for vulnerable Arab countries

  • The Trump administration has slashed funding for aid projects it says “do not align with US national interests”
  • Experts warn that ending USAID programs could fuel unrest, economic decline, and extremist recruitment

LONDON: The impact of the Trump administration’s decision to slash $60 billion in aid funding and cancel 90 percent of contracts by the US Agency for International Development is being felt by millions of the most vulnerable people in the Middle East and North Africa.

In countries like Iraq, Syria and Yemen, lifesaving aid programs to feed and provide healthcare for huge populations affected by conflict have halted. In Jordan, hundreds of development projects to boost the economy face an uncertain future and thousands of jobs may disappear.

The widespread halt in aid was confirmed just as countries across the region started to mark the holy month of Ramadan.

In an internal memo and filings in federal lawsuits, the US administration said it is eliminating more than 90 percent of USAID’s foreign aid contracts and $60 billion in overall assistance around the world. The memo said officials were “clearing significant waste stemming from decades of institutional drift.”




Displaced Sudanese people at a camp near the town of Tawila in North Darfur. (AFP)

More changes are planned in how USAID and the State Department deliver foreign assistance, it said, “to use taxpayer dollars wisely to advance American interests.”

Many Republican lawmakers believe USAID has been wasteful and harbors a liberal agenda. President Donald Trump has also promised to dramatically reduce spending and shrink the federal government.

USAID’s supporters say the agency not only provides vital assistance around the world, but for less than one percent of the federal budget, it is also America’s greatest soft power tool.

The crisis first arose on Jan. 20 when Trump signed an executive order halting all foreign assistance for a 90-day review period because the aid industry was “not aligned with American interests.”

Within days, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency was homing in on USAID programs, and by last week termination letters had been sent to nongovernmental organizations around the world.

Nearly 5,800 of USAID’s 6,200 multi-year contracts worth $54 billion were cut. The State Department also cut $4.4 billion in foreign aid-related grants.

Much of the agency’s vast array of work, from providing food to the starving, healthcare programs and economic development initiatives, has been stopped.

Many promised waivers for lifesaving programs have reportedly failed to materialize.

More than 6,000 of USAID’s 10,000 staff have been placed on administrative leave or fired, and tens of thousands of people working around the world have also lost their jobs.

Control of USAID has been moved to the State Department, which is locked in legal battles over the cuts. The department did not respond to a request for comment.

The MENA region received $3.9 billion from USAID in 2023. The sudden removal of the agency’s support could cause further suffering and instability in the region, Yossi Mekelberg, associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House, told Arab News.

“We’re talking about budgets of billions, which goes to projects between humanitarian and development,” he said. “The minute you take it away, you make people either suffer from humanitarian crises or you stop the development of these countries.

“If you want to maintain stability in the Middle East, which is important to the United States, you need economic development.”

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Below are details of how the shuttering of USAID has affected people and projects across the region.

IRAQ

In a country where more than 1 million people have still not returned to their homes after the war with Daesh extremists ended in 2017, USAID provided vital support to vulnerable populations.

Since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, the agency has spent billions trying to help Iraq rebuild. USAID funded clean water supplies, food aid, healthcare and support for women victims of violence.

The agency also provided grants to grow businesses and boost local economies and funded development projects to improve water supplies and food production.

The amount spent in Iraq in 2023 was more than $220 million, but many of the long-term projects, which have now stopped, were based on spending commitments over many years.

One USAID officer working on Iraq told Arab News that he could not imagine what would happen to Iraq’s displaced population without the agency’s funding.




USAID has spent billions trying to support Iraqis. (AFP)

“It’s heartbreaking,” he said. “I shudder to think of the human impacts of this, the lives lost, the time … it will take to ever recover from this. The whole sector is destroyed.”

Before the widespread canceling of contracts last week, he said some UN agencies and NGOs continued with essential assistance as they tried to interpret Trump’s executive order and the promised waivers.

Now everything related to USAID funding had stopped, said the officer, whose decade-long career with the agency was also terminated with 15 days’ notice.

This included assistance to the 100,000 displaced people in 21 formal camps in the northern Kurdish region.

The USAID officer said the halt was particularly bitter for Iraqis given the recent history of US foreign policy in the country.

He said the halting of aid risks plunging Iraq back into chaos by opening the way for extremist ideologies to regain traction.

“We are pulling the rug out from under what the US would consider a critical ally in this region.”

SYRIA

The humanitarian community was just getting to grips with a new Syria after the fall of President Bashar Assad in December.

The approach to delivering aid to the country during its 14-year civil war was hampered by the division of territory under the warring parties, along with international sanctions against the Assad regime.

Finally, it seemed, a coordinated surge of humanitarian operations could take place with new rulers in Damascus in control of much of the country.

“It was the opportunity in Syria for the first time in 14 years to really do an ‘all of country’ response,” Imrul Islam from the Syria International NGO Regional Forum told Arab News.




Al-Hol camp in Syria’s northeastern Al-Hasakah Governorate. (AFP/File)

The war had left more than 16 million Syrians needing humanitarian aid, according to the UN.

Islam estimates that USAID paid for at least a quarter of the entire humanitarian funding in Syria, with the northern parts of the country particularly reliant on NGOs to deliver essential aid.

When the “stop work” orders were sent in January from USAID to the NGOs they funded, it was a bitter blow.

Aid organizations in Syria were left in limbo as most projects ground to a halt almost overnight. The waivers granted for lifesaving aid failed to deliver a release of funds, so organizations continued essential deliveries by running up debt.

Last week’s blanket termination of contracts means that almost everything previously funded by USAID has now stopped, including operations considered lifesaving.

NGO coordination forums in Syria are assessing the scale of the fallout, but already Islam warned that “people will die” as a result.




NGOs estimate that at least 300,000 people would be affected by the halting of water and sanitation projects, and around 600,000 are not receiving food assistance. (AFP/File)

Several international NGOs rely on USAID for 95 percent of their funding and are now deciding whether they will have to leave Syria altogether.

As of February, NGOs estimate that at least 300,000 people would be affected by the halting of water and sanitation projects, and around 600,000 are not receiving food assistance.

In just northeast Syria, at least 2,800 per month would lose access to surgical procedures. “Thousands and thousands” of people are losing their jobs, Islam said.

Millions of people, he added, would lose access to assistance in the north of the country.

GAZA

The USAID freeze has jeopardized aid supplies to Gaza, where Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas and other militant groups has left the entire population of more than 2 million reliant on humanitarian assistance.

It also risks undermining the ceasefire agreed in January that halted the devastating 15-month conflict.

USAID has provided $2.1 billion in humanitarian assistance in Gaza since October 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, triggering the war.

The agency said in November it would provide an additional $230 million for economic recovery and development programs in the West Bank and Gaza.

Staff working for USAID on Palestine have been laid off. The organizations that deliver aid inside Gaza have also stopped working, their contracts have been terminated, and local Palestinian employees have lost their jobs.

“It’s a very bleak picture,” Dave Harden, a former USAID mission director for Gaza and the West Bank, told Arab News.




USAID said in November it would provide an additional $230 million for economic recovery and development programs in the West Bank and Gaza. (AFP/File)

“There’s no people, there’s no officers, there’s no staff, there’s no budget, there’s no (Washington) D.C. back office and there’s no active agreements.”

He agreed that it placed extra pressure on an already fragile ceasefire that relies on a massive aid delivery operation to alleviate the suffering.

“The risks are higher if there is any reduction in food,” he said.

So far, he believed UN reserves of food and other aid have filled the gap left by USAID, but this will start to run out.

Harden said the loss of USAID was not only devastating for Palestinians but also bad for Israel, which often used the agency as a communication channel.

JORDAN

As a long-term, reliable and stable US ally in the region, Jordan was the third largest recipient of USAID funding globally.

In 2023, the kingdom received $1.2 billion from the agency with much of it being used to support economic development.

While not suffering the scale of the humanitarian struggles in other countries in the region, the USAID funding supported businesses and government projects.




In 2023, the kingdom received $1.2 billion from USAID with much of it being used to support economic development. (AFP/File)

The funding was so entwined in Jordan’s economy that it accounted for more than 2 percent of the country’s gross domestic product in 2024, Reuters reported, citing JPMorgan.

The cuts in funding have rippled through the economy, leading to thousands of job losses according to some reports.

Rana Sweis spent a year going through an extensive application process to secure funding for a project for her Amman-based media and marketing company, Wishbox Media.

She then waited more than four months before approval came for an $81,000 grant from USAID’s Makanati project, which encouraged women into work in Jordan.

The year-long project started in May 2024 with money released in monthly increments in line with regular progress reports.

When she was told in January that funding would be frozen, her company was more than 80 percent through the promised work on empowering women in the workforce.

This included a 25-minute documentary, social media campaigns, infographics and other multimedia production.




As a long-term, reliable and stable US ally in the region, Jordan was the third largest recipient of USAID funding globally. (AFP/File)

Sweis said they now expect to lose nearly half of the grant but still hope to receive two pending payments left outstanding.

She had to let one staff member go and cancel the company’s internship program. “It’s a big loss for a small company, but what can I do?” she told Arab News.

“People are losing their jobs in Washington, people are not getting all these humanitarian lifesaving vaccines in Africa, and that’s how I deal with the loss we had.”

While she may be putting the impact on her company in perspective, hundreds of businesses across Jordan would have been taking similar or even greater financial hits in recent weeks.

“It’s a shock for Wishbox, but it’s a shock for me personally because USAID is such an integral part of Jordan and the development of Jordan,” she said. “It’s in every sector, in education, in water and in every level, from the government to civil society.”

YEMEN

Yemen is considered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with half of the country’s population requiring assistance, according to the UN.

With one-third of the money to pay for that aid coming from the US — mostly through USAID — there is deep concern about the impact the agency’s cutbacks will have on the country.

The US announced $220 million in additional aid, including nearly $200 million through USAID, in May 2024.

Yemen’s civil war began in 2014 when the Houthi militia, backed by Iran, took control of the capital and largest city, Sanaa, demanding a new government.




The US announced $220 million in additional aid, including nearly $200 million through USAID, in May 2024. (AFP/File)

Since the eruption of the war, the US has spent nearly $5.9 billion on the humanitarian response, according to a US Embassy statement last year.

One aid worker in Yemen told Arab News that projects across the country helping feed families, providing critical healthcare and improving water sanitation had been halted.

The worker said the cuts had come at a particularly difficult time with the start of Ramadan.

 


Hamas says open to 5-year Gaza truce, one-time hostages release

Updated 27 April 2025
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Hamas says open to 5-year Gaza truce, one-time hostages release

  • An Israeli pullout and a “permanent end to the war” would also have occurred — as outlined by then-US president Joe Biden — under a second phase of a ceasefire that had begun on January 19 but collapsed two months later

CAIRO: Hamas is open to an agreement to end the war in Gaza that would see all hostages released and secure a five-year truce, an official said Saturday as the group’s negotiators held talks with mediators.
A Hamas delegation was in Cairo discussing with Egyptian mediators ways out of the 18-month war, while, on the ground, rescuers said Israeli strikes killed at least 35 people.
Nearly eight weeks into an Israeli aid blockade, the United Nations says food and medical supplies are running out.
The Hamas official, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said the Palestinian militant group “is ready for an exchange of prisoners in a single batch and a truce for five years.”
The latest bid to seal a ceasefire follows an Israeli proposal which Hamas had rejected earlier this month as “partial,” calling instead for a “comprehensive” agreement to halt the war ignited by the group’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
The rejected Israeli offer, according to a senior Hamas official, included a 45-day ceasefire in exchange for the return of 10 living hostages.
Hamas has consistently demanded that a truce deal must lead to the war’s end, a full Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and a surge in humanitarian aid.
An Israeli pullout and a “permanent end to the war” would also have occurred — as outlined by then-US president Joe Biden — under a second phase of a ceasefire that had begun on January 19 but collapsed two months later.
Hamas had sought talks on the second phase but Israel wanted the first phase extended.
Israel demands the return of all hostages seized in the 2023 attack, and Hamas’s disarmament, which the group has rejected as a “red line.”
“This time we will insist on guarantees regarding the end of the war,” Mahmud Mardawi, a senior Hamas official, said in a statement.
“The occupation can return to war after any partial deal, but it cannot do so with a comprehensive deal and international guarantees.”
Later on Saturday, senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan reiterated that “any proposal that does not include a comprehensive and permanent cessation of the war will not be considered.”
“We will not abandon the resistance’s weapons as long as the occupation persists,” he said in a statement.

Israel pounded Gaza again on Saturday.
Mohammed Al-Mughayyir, an official with the territory’s civil defense rescue agency, told AFP that the death toll had risen to at least 35.
In Gaza City, in the territory’s north, civil defense said a strike on the Khour family home killed 10 people and left an estimated 20 more trapped in the debris.
Umm Walid Al-Khour, who survived the attack, said “everyone was sleeping with their children” when the strike hit and “the house collapsed on top of us.”
Elsewhere across Gaza, 25 more people were killed, rescuers said.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the latest strikes but it said that “1,800 terror targets” had been hit across Gaza since the military campaign resumed on March 18.
The military added that “hundreds of terrorists” were also killed.
Qatar, the United States and Egypt brokered the truce which began on January 19 and enabled a surge in aid, alongside exchanges of hostages and Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
With Israel and Hamas disagreeing over the ceasefire’s next phase, Israel cut all aid to Gaza before resuming bombardment, followed by a ground offensive.

Since then, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, at least 2,111 Palestinians have been killed, taking the overall war death toll in Gaza to 51,495 people, mostly civilians.
The Hamas attack that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, also mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel says the military campaign aims to force Hamas to free the remaining captives.
On Friday, the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said the hot meal kitchens it was supplying with food in Gaza “are expected to fully run out of food in the coming days.”
On Saturday, AFP footage showed queues of people waiting for food in front of a community kitchen.
“There is no food in the free kitchen, there is no food in the markets... There is no flour or bread,” said north Gaza resident Wael Odeh.
A senior UN official, Jonathan Whittall, said Gazans were “slowly dying.”
“This is not only about humanitarian needs but also about dignity,” Whittall, head of the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs in the Palestinian territories, told journalists.

 


Houthis say 8 wounded in US strikes on Yemen capital

Smoke billows from the site of a U.S. air strike in Sanaa, Yemen April 26, 2025. (REUTERS)
Updated 26 April 2025
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Houthis say 8 wounded in US strikes on Yemen capital

  • Since US President Donald Trump took office, those attacks have intensified, with almost daily strikes for the past month

SANAA: Iran-backed Houthi rebels said Saturday that a series of US strikes on territory under their control including the Yemeni capital Sanaa had wounded at least eight people.
“Eight citizens, including two children, were wounded when the American enemy targeted a residential district” west of Al-Rawda in Sanaa, said the Houthi-run Saba news agency.
It cited the Houthi administration’s health ministry as the source for what it said was a provisional toll.
An AFP correspondent in Sanaa reported earlier Saturday having heard explosions.
The Houthis, who control large parts of the war-torn country, also reported strikes in other parts of the country, including their stronghold Saada in the north.
They said the fuel port of Ras Issa in the western Hodeida region — where they say 80 people were killed in strikes just over a week ago — had also been hit.
The Houthis, part of Iran’s “axis of resistance” against Israel and the United States, portray themselves as defenders of Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war.
They have regularly launched missiles and drones at Israel and at cargo vessels plying the key Red Sea trade route.
The US military has since January 2024 been attacking their positions, saying it is targeting the “Iran-backed Houthi terrorists” to stop their attacks.
Since US President Donald Trump took office, those attacks have intensified, with almost daily strikes for the past month.
On Saturday, the Houthis said they had launched a missile and two drones at Israel, where the army said it had intercepted a missile from Yemen and a drone coming from the east.
On Saturday, CENTCOM, the US military command in the region, posted footage from the US aircraft carriers Harry S. Truman and Carl Vinson conducting strikes against the Houthis.
 

 


At least 11 Sudanese killed in RSF drone strike

Updated 26 April 2025
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At least 11 Sudanese killed in RSF drone strike

  • The escalation of such strikes, which have hampered the country’s electrical grid and plunged millions into weeks-long blackouts, comes two years into a damaging war as the army has been pushing the paramilitary force out of central Sudan

AL-DAMAR, Sudan: At least 11 people were killed after a drone strike by the Rapid Support Forces hit a displacement camp in Sudan’s River Nile state, the governor said in a statement, in an attack that also took out the regional power station for the fourth time.
The RSF, which denies carrying out drone attacks and did not respond to a request for comment, has targeted power stations in army-controlled locations in central and northern Sudan for the past several months, but the strikes had not previously left significant death tolls.
“We heard a large explosion and we found two families that had been burnt completely inside their tents, while they were sleeping,” said teacher Mashair Hemeidan as she shed tears.
“We had left Khartoum, fearful of the war, and now the war has followed us here. I don’t know where I will go with my family and children. We have no shelter or place to go to,” she added.

I don’t know where I will go with my family and children. We have no shelter or place to go to.

Mashair Hemeidan, Teacher

The escalation of such strikes, which have hampered the country’s electrical grid and plunged millions into weeks-long blackouts, comes two years into a damaging war as the army has been pushing the paramilitary force out of central Sudan.
Ground fighting in the war is now focused on the Darfur region, where the RSF is fighting to seize the army’s remaining foothold, driving hundreds of thousands from their homes.
There has also been fighting in western Omdurman, part of the capital, where the RSF remains.
The Friday morning attack by multiple missiles, which set some of the tents on fire, injured 23 other people, a medical official said.
Reuters witnesses saw at least nine children among the wounded.
“My nine-year-old son, Ahmed, was killed, and now my nine-year-old Fadi and my seven-year-old Omnia are in the hospital,” said Fadwa Adlan, a resident of the camp.
Some 179 families displaced by the fighting in the capital had been living in difficult conditions in an abandoned building and surrounding tents outside the town of Al-Damer, receiving little in the way of humanitarian assistance. The camp was located about 3 km from the Atbara power station, which was also struck.
On Friday, authorities could be seen hosing down the residents’ belongings destroyed in the fire and breaking down the camp. Residents were seen boarding buses to an unknown location.

 


Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has appointed a new deputy in a major step in naming a successor

Updated 26 April 2025
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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has appointed a new deputy in a major step in naming a successor

  • The appointment of Hussein Al-Sheikh does not guarantee he will be the next Palestinian president
  • It makes him the front-runner among longtime politicians in the dominant Fatah party

RAMALLAH, West Bank: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday named a veteran aide and confidant as his new vice president. It’s a major step by the aging leader to designate a successor.
The appointment of Hussein Al-Sheikh as vice president of the Palestine Liberation Organization does not guarantee he will be the next Palestinian president. But it makes him the front-runner among longtime politicians in the dominant Fatah party who hope to succeed the 89-year-old Abbas.
The move is unlikely to boost the image among many Palestinians of Fatah as a closed and corrupt movement out of touch with the general public.
Abbas hopes to play a major role in postwar Gaza. He has been under pressure from Western and Arab allies to rehabilitate the Palestinian Authority, which has limited autonomy in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. He has announced a series of reforms in recent months, and last week his Fatah movement approved the new position of PLO vice president.
The PLO is the internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people and oversees the Western-backed Palestinian Authority. Abbas has led both entities for two decades.
Under last week’s decision, the new vice president, coming from the PLO’s 16-member executive committee, would succeed Abbas in a caretaker capacity if the president dies or becomes incapacitated.
That would make him the front-runner to replace Abbas on a permanent basis, though not guarantee it. The PLO’s executive committee would need to approve that appointment, and the body is filled with veteran politicians who see themselves as worthy contenders.
The Palestinian Authority, meanwhile, would have a separate caretaker leader, Rawhi Fattouh, the speaker of the Palestinians’ non-functioning parliament. But within 90 days, it would have to hold elections. If that is not possible, the new PLO president would likely take over the position.
Al-Sheikh, 64, is a veteran politician who has held a series of top positions over decades, most recently as the secretary-general of the PLO’s executive committee for the past three years. He spent 11 years in Israeli prisons in his youth and is a veteran of the Palestinian security forces — experiences that could give him credibility with Palestinian security figures and the broader public.
Now he finds himself in a strong position to shore up his power.
He is Abbas’ closest aide and, most critically, maintains good working relations with Israel and the Palestinians’ Arab allies, including wealthy Gulf countries. As Abbas’ point man with Israel, Al-Sheikh is responsible for arranging coveted travel permits for Palestinians, including VIP leaders, giving him an important lever of power over his rivals.
However, polls show Al-Sheikh, like most of Fatah’s leadership, to be deeply unpopular with the general public. This week’s decision behind closed doors by the PLO’s aging leadership is likely to reinforce its image as being stodgy and out of touch.
The most popular Palestinian, Marwan Barghouti, is serving multiple life sentences in an Israeli prison, and Israel has ruled out releasing him as part of any swap for Israeli hostages held in Gaza by the Hamas militant group.
As Israel’s war with Hamas drags on, with talk by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of uprooting Palestinians in Gaza to relocate them elsewhere, Al-Sheikh will be under mounting pressure to unite the Palestinian leadership.
The PLO is a rival for Hamas, which won the last national elections in 2006 and is not in the PLO. Hamas seized control of Gaza from Abbas’ forces in 2007, and reconciliation attempts have repeatedly failed.
In a 2022 interview with The Associated Press, Al-Sheikh defended his unpopular coordination with Israel, saying there was no choice under the difficult circumstances of the occupation.
“I am not a representative for Israel in the Palestinian territories,” he said at the time. “We undertake the coordination because this is the prelude to a political solution for ending the occupation.”


Syria’s Kurds hold conference on vision for country’s future

Mazloum Abdi, commander-in-chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), speaks during the pan-Kurdish "Unity and Consensus" conf
Updated 26 April 2025
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Syria’s Kurds hold conference on vision for country’s future

  • More than 400 people, including representatives from major Kurdish parties in Syria, Iraq and Turkiye, took part in the “Unity of the Kurdish Position and Ranks” conference in Qamishli

QAMISHLI: Syria’s Kurdish parties held a conference on Saturday aimed at presenting a unified vision for the country’s future following the fall of longtime ruler Bashar Assad, a high-ranking participant told AFP.
Eldar Khalil, an official in the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, said that since Kurds were a major component of the country, they “must present a solution and a project proposal for the future of Syria.”
On the question of federalism, Khalil said it was “one of the proposals on the table.”
More than 400 people, including representatives from major Kurdish parties in Syria, Iraq and Turkiye, took part in the “Unity of the Kurdish Position and Ranks” conference in Qamishli, according to the Kurdish Anha news agency.
The Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, which has controlled large swathes of Syria’s northeast since the early years of the country’s civil war, was represented at the gathering, as were groups opposed to it.
Last month, the Kurdish administration struck a deal to integrate into state institutions, with the new Islamist-led leadership seeking to unify the country following the December overthrow of Assad.
The agreement, however, has not prevented the Kurdish administration from criticizing the new authorities, including over the formation of a new government and a recent constitutional declaration that concentrated executive power in the hands of interim President Ahmad Al-Sharaa during the transition period.
Mazloum Abdi, head of the administration’s armed wing, the Syrian Democratic Forces, said at the conference that “my message to all Syrian constituents and the Damascus government is that the conference does not aim, as some say, at division.”
It was being held, he added, “for the unity of Syria.”
Abdi included a call for “a new decentralized constitution that includes all components” of society.
“We support all Syrian components receiving their rights in the constitution to be able to build a decentralized democratic Syria that embraces everyone,” he said.
Khalil said that the participants will also discuss ways to address the role of the Kurds in the new Syria.