Kuwait renews calls for political solution in Syria
NEW YORK, Oct 18, (Agencies): The State of Kuwait renewed late Wednesday calls for a political solution to resolve the crisis in Syria, affirming that a military choice was beyond consideration.
Speaking to a UN session on Syria, Kuwait’s Permanent Representative to the UN headquarters in New York Ambassador Mansour Al-Otaibi said that international community must follow the course clearly laid down by the 2012 Geneva communique and UNSC Resolution 2254 to put an end to the misery in the war torn country.
After nine months of Sochi’s agreement to form a constitutional committee, the world was hopeful that the crisis in Syria would see some sort of an initial solution, said Al-Otaibi. He hoped that the upcoming visit by United Nations and Arab League Envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura to Damascus next week would come out with fruitful results to launch such endeavor.
He indicated that the launching of the reliable and creditable constitutional committee was the very first step towards a political solution for the crisis in Syria.
Not so long, Syria was on the verge of a global humanitarian crisis in Idlib, a city of three million people mostly innocent civilians, said Al-Otaibi who stressed it was important for all involved parties to de-escalate tension in the whole of Syria.
The Kuwaiti diplomat called for the full implementation of February 2018’s UNSC resolution 2401 concerning the protection of civilians and making sure that humanitarian aid reached those who are in desperate need.
It was time for the world to put an end to the crisis in Syria, reaching a peaceful epilogue to the sorrow events occurred in the last eight years, affirmed Al-Otaibi.
President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that it was not up to Russia to persuade Iran to pull its forces out of Syria, and that the governments calling for Iran to leave should provide guarantees that they would not meddle in Syria’s affairs.
Putin was speaking at a forum in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi.
Putin said on Thursday that Islamic State (IS) militants had seized nearly 700 hostages in part of Syria controlled by US-backed forces and had executed some of them and promised to kill more.
Speaking in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, Putin said the hostages included several US and European nationals, adding that Islamic State was expanding its control in territory on the left bank of the River Euphrates controlled by US and US-backed forces.
Putin did not specify what the militants’ demands were.
“They have issued ultimatums, specific demands and warned that if these ultimatums are not met they will execute 10 people every day. The day
before yesterday they executed 10 people,” Putin told the Valdai discussion forum in Sochi.
The TASS news agency reported on Wednesday that IS militants had taken around 700 hostages in Syria’s Deir Ezzor province after attacking a refugee camp in an area controlled by US-backed forces on Oct 13.
TASS said the militants had kidnapped around 130 families and taken them to the city of Hajin.
A UN humanitarian aid official said Thursday that Syria’s government has withdrawn a controversial law that allowed authorities to seize property left behind by civilians who fled the country’s civil war, calling it a good sign that “diplomacy can win — even in Syria.”
Jan Egeland said he was told of the decision by Russia, a key ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Egeland also said Assad’s government
has agreed to allow convoys of aid to enter the desolate Rukban area near Syria’s border with Jordan. He said the UN and its partners haven’t gotten access since January to the area where up to 50,000 civilians have been stuck for months, calling it one of Syria’s most “desperate places.”
Egeland, who heads aid issues in the office of UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura, but whose day job is leading the Norwegian Refugee Council, also confirmed he will leave the UN post in November. He spoke a day after de Mistura told the UN Security Council that he himself is leaving for “personal” reasons.
Speaking after a UN “humanitarian task force” meeting in Geneva, Egeland said Russia reiterated assurances it had made earlier regarding Syria’s so-called “Law 10” having been withdrawn. Under the law, residents have just 30 days to prove that they own property in redevelopment zones in order to receive shares in the projects, otherwise the ownership will be transferred to the local government.
The law has been seen as a major impediment to the possible return of millions of Syrian refugees and internally displaced people who fled their homes in Syria’s 7-1/2-year war, which has left at least 400,000 people dead. Syrian officials have insisted the law will not result in the confiscation of property, but is aimed at proving and organizing ownership to combat alleged forgery of documents in rebelheld areas.
It was not clear whether Assad’s government might later revive the legislation or enact it in other ways.
“When Russia says that it is withdrawn and there were mistakes done... it is some good news,” Egeland said. “Hopefully this will now be reality on the ground. So diplomacy can win — even in Syria.”
Syrian legislator Mohammed Kheir Akkam told The Associated Press on Thursday that the law was issued by presidential decree and there has been no decree to abolish it.
“These claims are not true so far,” he said when asked whether “Law 10” has been abolished.
There was no immediate reaction or confirmation from either Russia or the Syrian government regarding the law.
As for Rukban, Egeland bemoaned how only a “trickle” of goods had reached civilians in the desert area in recent months.
“We’ve been assured that we will have all the green lights and permits from the government in Damascus to send a convoy through with food, with health and sanitation equipment — all that is needed for a population in Rukban that has had the most desperate pleas now in the last weeks for aid,” he said.
Overall, Egeland cited a number of “positive” developments in Syria in recent weeks.
He hailed the news that airstrikes over the northwestern region of Idlib — the last major rebel stronghold in Syria — have stopped for the last five weeks, in part due to Russian efforts.
Egeland also noted a decision by Western donors to lift temporary restrictions that they had imposed on aid flows over concerns that the funds might end up in the hands of groups that the UN has listed as terrorist organizations, such as an al-Qaeda-linked group that controls much of Idlib.
He expressed concern, however, that Western nations are still refusing to contribute to reconstruction in Syria. The US and European countries have said they will not contribute to Syria’s rebuilding without a political transition away from Assad’s rule, something the Syrian government adamantly rejects.
A day after the UN envoy for Syria announced his planned departure, the head of the humanitarian taskforce for the war-ravaged country said Thursday he would also resign next month.
“I am also leaving at the end of November,” Jan Egeland told reporters in Geneva.
His comment came after the UN envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, announced Wednesday that he will step down at the end of next month after more than four years in the key post.
The Italian-Swedish diplomat, who is the UN’s third Syria envoy in six years, said he was leaving for “purely personal reasons,” citing the need to give his family “a little bit of attention” after a long stint in the demanding post.
And Egeland insisted Thursday that he had already decided when his contract was renewed last month that he would leave at the end of November, and that it was “a coincidence” that he and de Mistura were stepping down at the same time.
He said his three years in the job had been “very exhausting”, especially since he also has a full-time job as head of the Norwegian Refugee Council.
Both men are leaving as UN efforts to end the seven-year war show no sign of a breakthrough.
More than 360,000 people have died in Syria’s war, which began in March 2011 as an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad but has morphed into a complex conflict with myriad armed groups, some of whom are foreignbacked.
“I presume I will be replaced by somebody better and that they will continue with the task force because the job is not even half done,” Egeland said.
He nonetheless hailed a few positive developments in Syria that had been discussed by countries at a taskforce meeting Thursday, including the success so far of a Russian-Turkish deal to create calm around Syria’s last rebel stronghold, Idlib. “It is a welcome calm,” he said. But overall, Egeland lamented that over the three years he has headed the humanitarian taskforce for Syria, “there has been too many setbacks, we have failed more often than we have achieved what we wanted.”
De Mistura also acknowledged Wednesday that the UN’s job in Syria was far from over, and vowed not to lay “down the charge until the last hour of the last day of my mandate.”
But his departure will complicate UN peace efforts at a time when Syrian forces have made significant territorial gains, prompting discussion about the terms of a political settlement to end the war.
De Mistura will be travelling to Damascus next week to push for the creation of a committee to agree on a post-war constitution for Syria that would pave the way to elections.
That plan has been under discussion since January when it was announced at a conference organised by Russia, a key Syrian ally, but it has since been bogged down in bickering over the committee’s composition.
But de Mistura said Wednesday he hoped the committee will be up and running in November, before he leaves.
A year after a US-backed alliance of Syrian fighters drove the Islamic State group from the northern city of Raqqa, traumatised civilians still live in fear of near-daily bombings.
“Every day we wake up to the sound of an explosion,” said resident Khaled al-Darwish.
“We’re scared to send our children to school... there’s no security,” he added.
The jihadists’ brutal rule in Raqqa was brought to an end in October 2017 after a months-long ground offensive by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces supported by air strikes from a US-led coalition.
But despite manning roadblocks at every street corner, the SDF and the city’s newly created Internal Security Forces are struggling to stem infiltration by IS sleeper cells.
At Raqqa’s entrance, soldiers verify drivers’ identity papers and carefully sift through lorry cargoes.
Inside the city, there are regular foot patrols and armoured vehicles sit at strategic points.
Women wearing the niqab are asked to show their faces to female security members before entering public buildings.
“If there wasn’t fear about a return of IS, there wouldn’t be this increased military presence,” said Darwish, a father of two, speaking near the infamous Paradise Square.
It was here that IS carried out decapitations and other brutal punishments, earning the intersection a new name — “the roundabout of hell”.
While the nightmare of jihadist rule may be gone, most of the city still lies in ruins and there are near daily attacks on checkpoints and military vehicles, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.