Syrian war, in 10th year, still has global impact SYRIA ELECTIONS POSTPONED OVER CORONAVIRUS
Beirut, March 15: In a world gripped by a pandemic, global unrest and a fast-moving news cycle, it can be difficult to remember that the war in Syria is still happening.
Even before the coronavirus outbreak took over daily lives around the globe, the conflict, which began in early 2011, had largely fallen off the world's collective radars — reduced to a never-ending fight involving an evermore complex web of players and refugees that few remember once lived in a country they called home.
But as it enters its tenth year, the war — which gave rise to the Islamic State group and triggered the worst humanitarian catastrophe of the 21st century — has shown it is still creating new tragedies that can have an outsized impact on global politics. Earlier this month, Turkish and Syrian troops were clashing in Syria’s northwest.
That brought NATOmember Turkey and Russia, which back opposing sides of the war, to the brink of direct confrontation, and produced an unprecedented wave of displaced people. Arguing that it faces a potential new influx of refugees from Syria, Turkey announced it would no longer stop its vast migrant and refugee population from illegally entering Greece, touching off a new crisis for the European Union.
More than half of Syria’s pre-war population of 23 million people have been driven from their homes, and a staggering 80% of the population live beneath the poverty line, according to the United Nations. Half the country lies in ruins. A political process does not exist. Contrary to what some may hope, the Syrian war is nowhere near its end-game.
A cease-fire brokered by the Turkish and Russian presidents in Moscow last week may have put the brakes on the Syrian government’s devastating military campaign to retake the northwestern Idlib province.
But the halt is not a longterm solution, and the war’s final and most devastating chapter is yet to come. In the three months before it was paused, the Syrian offensive triggered the largest single wave of displacement of the entire war. — AP
Damascus, March 15: Syria said Saturday its parliamentary elections scheduled for next month would be postponed as part of measures to protect the war-battered country against the coronavirus epidemic.
The president’s office said on its official social media accounts that the vote will be pushed back to May 20, from the original date of April 13. In other “social distancing” steps adopted by Damascus, which has not to date reported any case of the disease, weekly Friday prayers in mosques have been suspended as well as prayer gatherings.
The polls, to be held across government-run areas, are the third such elections in Syria since the March 2011 start of its nine-year war that has killed at least 384,000 people. Assad’s forces today hold more than 70 percent of Syrian soil following Russian-backed victories against rebels and jihadists since 2015. On Friday, the government closed schools, universities and technical colleges until April 2.
RUSSIA AND TURKEY on Sunday launched their first joint military patrol along the key M4 highway in Syria’s Idlib region, following a ceasefire agreement earlier this month, Russian news agencies reported.
RUSSIA SENT military police and armoured vehicles to the patrol, which started from the settlement of Tronba in Idlib, the last rebel stronghold in the country.