Removing Assad no longer priority in Syria: Macron
US reassures Turkey over arms to Syrian Kurds
PARIS, June 22, (Agencies): France no longer sees the departure of President Bashar al-Assad as a priority in the Syrian conflict, French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday, making the policy official for the first time.
The new French leader said instead that fighting jihadists such as the Islamic State group had to be the international community’s number one goal in a conflict that grew out of protests against the Syrian president in 2011 but has since become increasingly complex and multifaceted.
“The real change I’ve made on this question, is that I haven’t said the deposing of Bashar al-Assad is a prerequisite for everything,” Macron said in an interview with several European newspapers, including Britain’s Guardian, Spain’s El Pais and Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
“Because no one has introduced me to his legitimate successor,” said the French president, who took office last month.
His comments were met with dismay by the Syrian opposition.
“Shame on France, whose leader Emmanuel Macron does not see Bashar as its enemy or an enemy to humanity,” tweeted Ahmed Ramadan, a member of the Syrian National Coalition, the main umbrella organisation of opposition groups.
“A tragic fall for morality and humanity,” Ramadan added.
Khaled Khoja, another opposition figure, posted on Twitter: “Macron’s statements are surprising, considering that France was among four countries in the core Friends of Syria group — in addition to Britain, Turkey, and Qatar — that had supported the departure of ‘Chemical’ Bashar.”
Macron said he now saw two key priorities in Syria.
“My line is clear: one, a total fight against terrorist groups. They are our enemies ... We need the cooperation of everyone to eradicate them, particularly Russia. Two: stability in Syria, because I don’t want a failed state.”
Macron said the international community had made a “collective error” in thinking the conflict could be solved “only with military force”, adding: “My deep conviction is that we need a political and diplomatic roadmap.”
But he repeated his warning that the use of chemical weapons and the violation of humanitarian corridors set up to deliver aid to desperate Syrian civilians were “red lines” and that France would be willing to act alone in response.
France was among Western nations pushing most vocally for Assad to go at the start of the conflict, which has since left more than 320,000 people dead and forced millions from their homes.
Meanwhile, food aid has reached Syria’s Kurdish-dominated city of Qamishli by road for the first time in two years in a “humanitarian breakthrough” that will increase support for tens of thousands of families, the United Nations said on Thursday.
Although Qamishli lies on the Turkish border, the crossing is closed and the UN aid effort in northeastern Syria has relied on airlifts from Damascus to Qamishli since July 2016.
Last week, Syria gave the UN permission to get aid to Qamishli by truck, relieving the strain on a base that is supporting thousands of people who have been displaced by the war with Islamic State.
A convoy of three lorries from Homs has since arrived in the city in the northeastern Hasakeh region, passing by Aleppo and bringing a month’s supply of food for 15,000 people, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said.
“This humanitarian breakthrough will allow us to increase regular support for all 250,000 people in need in Hasakeh,” WFP’s Syria country director Jakob Kern said in a statement.
The agency said it could previously assist only 190,000 people by airlifts, due to higher costs and limited capacity.
“Once regular land access to Hasakeh is established, WFP will gradually phase out of its current airlift operation,” Kern said.
That could save the agency some $19 million annually — enough to provide a year’s food aid to 100,000 people, WFP said.
WFP flights had been running at full capacity, twice a day, six days a week for almost a year.
Roads became inaccessible in December 2015, and restoration of deliveries was only made possible by improved security, the agency said.
The development came as US backed Syrian militias were closing in on Islamic State’s Syrian stronghold of Raqqa.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which include Arab and Kurdish fighters and are supported with air strikes by a US-led coalition, began an offensive two weeks ago to seize the northern city from Islamic State, which overran it in 2014.
Earlier in June, the UN said it estimated that 440,000 people might need humanitarian aid as a result of the offensive.
In other news, Australia Thursday lifted a suspension on military air missions over Syria imposed after the shooting down of a Syrian jet by US forces.
Canberra temporarily halted flights on Tuesday after a spike in tensions between the US and Russia, which warned it would track coalition aircraft in Syria as potential “targets”.
Moscow also halted a military hotline with Washington over the incident, intended to prevent confrontations in Syria’s crowded air space.
Australia defence ministry said in a statement the suspension was “a precautionary measure to allow the coalition to assess the operational risk”.
“The suspension has since been lifted,” it added.
The United States moved quickly to contain an escalation of the situation after the jet was downed on Sunday evening when regime forces targeted the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of Arab and Kurdish fighters battling IS.
A top US general said the country would work to relaunch the “deconfliction” hotline established in 2015, after Russia said Washington had failed to use the line — a vital incident-prevention tool — before targeting the plane near Raqqa.
Australia is part of the coalition fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq and in late 2015 extended air operations into Syria, with a total of 780 defence personnel based in the Middle East.
The staunch US ally in September said it would widen the scope of targets in the air war against IS by allowing its pilots to strike jihadist support and logistics resources in Iraq and Syria.
Australia’s Air Task Group consists of 300 personnel, six F/A-18 Hornets, an E-7A Wedgetail Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft, and a KC-30A Multi-Role Tanker and Transport plane.
Elsewhere, Turkish officials said Thursday that US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has written to his Turkish counterpart, reassuring him that arms provided to Syrian Kurdish fighters would be taken back once Islamic State militants are ousted from their main stronghold in Syria, the city of Raqqa.
Turkish Defense Ministry officials said in a statement that Mattis also reassured Defense Minister Fikri Isik that the United States would regularly provide Turkey with a list of arms provided to the fighters while US military advisers on the field would ensure that the arms don’t go outside of the Syria battle zones.
A US decision to launch an offensive to capture Raqqa in partnership with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces has complicated relations with Ankara, which views the group’s Kurdish fighters as an extension of an insurgent Kurdish terror group operating in Turkey.
Ankara fears arms provided to the Kurdish fighters will end up in the hands of the insurgents in Turkey and has threatened to respond to threats.
The officials said Mattis told Isik in the letter that 80 percent of the force which would capture Raqqa would be made up of Arabs and that an Arab force would hold the city.