Two weeks after seizing power in an all-out offensive, Syria’s new leader Ahmed Salat said on Sunday that the country’s weapons, including those held by Kurdish-led forces, would come under state control.
Sala spoke alongside Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan after meeting earlier with Lebanese Druze leaders and vowing to end “negative interference” in the neighbor.
Ankara-backed rebels played a key role in backing Shara’s Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which led a rebel coalition that captured Damascus on December 8 and ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad. Virtue.
Salad told a news conference with Fidan that Syrian armed “factions will begin to announce their disbandment and join” the army.
“We will never allow weapons outside state control, whether from revolutionary factions or from factions in the Self-Defense Forces area,” he added.
During a meeting at the presidential palace on Sunday, Sala changed the olive green military shirt he had worn a few days earlier for a suit and tie.
He also said that “we are working to protect sects and minorities from any attacks that occur among themselves” and from “external” actors exploiting the situation “to create sectarian discord”.
“Syria is a country for everyone and we can coexist,” he added.
This sentiment is reflected in Damascus’s brightly lit Christmas markets, where nutritionist Batoul al-Law said there are more Muslims than Christians.
“We’ve always celebrated Christian and Muslim holidays together,” she said, but “you feel like people are happier and more comfortable now.”
Türkiye’s Fidan said sanctions on Syria must be “lifted as soon as possible”. He called on the international community to “mobilize to help Syria get back on its feet and to help displaced people return to their homes.”
Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war has killed more than 500,000 people and displaced more than half the population, many of whom fled to neighboring countries, including 3 million in Turkey.
Türkiye maintains close ties with Syria’s new leadership and continues military operations against Kurdish-controlled areas in northeastern Syria.
Top German diplomat Tobias Tunkel said on Sunday he had spoken with SDF leader Mazloum Abdi over growing tensions over the Kurdish-controlled border town of Kobani The situation was discussed “and urgent measures were taken to defuse the tension”.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a woman and her child were killed in “shelling by pro-Turkish factions” in the countryside of Kobani who have clashed with the SDF further south.
Ankara believes that the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the main component of the SDF, is linked to the domestic radical Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Turkey and Western allies consider a “terrorist” organization.
-“Respect Lebanese sovereignty”-
Regional power Saudi Arabia also maintains direct ties with Syria’s new authorities and has supported the opposition to Assad during Syria’s civil war for years. Syria’s ambassador to the Saudi Arabian capital said Riyadh would soon send a delegation to the country.
During a meeting with visiting Lebanese Druze chiefs Walid and Taimur Jumblatt, Salat said that Syria would no longer engage in “any negative interference in Lebanon.”
Sala added that Syria “will maintain equal distance from everyone in Lebanon,” acknowledging that Syria has been a “source of fear and anxiety” for its neighbors.
Walid Jumblatt, a long-time fierce critic of Assad and his father Hafez, who ruled Syria before him, arrived in Damascus on Sunday at the head of a delegation of parliamentary bloc MPs and Druze clerics.
The Druze religious minority is found throughout Lebanon, Syria, Israel and Jordan.
The Syrian army entered Lebanon in 1976 and did not leave the country until 2005, following the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, following intense pressure and mass protests. , committed by the Lebanese Hezbollah organization supported by Iran.
HTS is listed as a terrorist organization by many governments, including the United States, and the seizure of power by Sunni Islamists has raised concerns, although the group has tried to soften its image in recent years.
Global powers including the United States and the European Union have stepped up engagement with the war-torn country’s new leaders, urging them to guarantee protections for women and minorities.
Foreign leaders have also stressed the importance of fighting “terrorism and extremism”.
Assad has long played a strategic role in Iran’s “Axis of Resistance”, a loose alliance of regional proxy forces targeting Israel, particularly in promoting the supply of weapons to neighboring Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
This axis has suffered a heavy blow over the past year as Israel destroyed the leadership of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
Nonetheless, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei denied on Sunday that the armed groups were acting as proxies, adding: “If one day we want to take action, we will not need proxy forces.”
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