Assad’s diplomatic isolation dissolving

Kurdish Syrian forces on Friday asked the Assad government for protection against a possible Turkish attack on a flashpoint town.

The move is a sign of shifting alliance sin the region and comes as Syrian President Bashar Assad — once a diplomatic pariah — appears set to be welcomed back into the international fold, at least by some Arab countries.

After the Syrian civil war began in 2011, the Kurds used the cover of battle to carve out an autonomous state in northeastern Syria. The West — including Canada — was happy to see the Kurds fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Canada provided the Kurds with weapons and Canadian special forces were sent to the area to train them.

However, the Kurdish project for a homeland looks increasingly unviable as Assad’s regime aims to reclaim the whole of Syria.

Kurdish officials said they would rather try their luck in negotiations with the regime than risk an all-out assault from neighbouring Turkey, which considers the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) a terrorist group and has watched Kurdish expansion with growing concern.

“The YPG accepts drinking the poison to stop a massacre. Do you prefer your people to be massacred by a brutal dictator like (Turkish president Recep Tayyip) Erdogan or be protected by a brutal dictator like Assad?” tweeted Kamal Chomani, a fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy.

On Friday, a delegation of Syrian troops erected the national flag over buildings in the outskirts of Manbij after the invitation from the Kurds — the first time it has flown in the northern town for more than six years.

Kurdish YPG fighters in the town are part of the formerly U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) battling ISIL.

However, President Donald Trump’s decision last week to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria has left their former allies in the country vulnerable.

Meanwhile, Damascus became diplomatically isolated from a number of foreign countries when the war started. Many closed their embassies or removed their ambassadors because of safety concerns, but some made it clear that they were doing so in condemnation of the Syrian government and its leader.

Now, it looks as if shuttered embassies may be reopening in the Syrian capital as Assad’s diplomatic isolation begins to fall away.

On Thursday, the United Arab Emirates’ flag was raised above a compound in central Damascus, as charge d’affaires Abdul-Hakim Naimi officially reopened the country’s diplomatic mission in the country.

The next day, Bahrain’s Foreign Ministry announced that “work is continuing at its embassy” in Syria, which has been without an ambassador since 2011.