Quiet in Syria … for now
Early signs of success as Trump declares that agreement hammered out by the US, Russia and Jordan will save lives
A Free Syrian Army fighter sits in a rebel-held part of the southern city of Deraa, as the ceasefire brokered by the US and Russia takes hold.
A ceasefire brokered by the United States, Russia and Jordan in southwestern Syria appeared to be holding after going into effect at 12pm yesterday.
No air strikes or clashes were reported across the country’s three southern provinces in the first hours of the truce, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group monitoring the war in Syria.
The ceasefire deal is believed to include a “de-escalation zone” covering the provinces of Deraa and Sweida, on the border with Jordan, and Quneitra province, on the edge of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
The Syrian government announced a unilateral ceasefire in the area last week to bolster peace talks in the Kazakh capital, Astana, and extended it until Saturday.
But the rebel fighters have accused the government of breaching that ceasefire with air strikes and artillery attacks.
Damascus has yet to comment on the new US-Russian-Jordanian agreement that went into effect yesterday.
The open-ended ceasefire between the Syrian government and its allies and rebel forces could be the first move towards broader co-operation between Washington and Moscow in Syria.
It marks the Trump administration’s most serious foray yet into peacemaking there.
“I think this is our first indication of the US and Russia being able to work together in Syria,” US secretary of state Rex Tillerson said in Hamburg on Friday.
It was the same day president Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin held their first direct talks at the G20 summit.
Mr Tillerson had said last week that the US was open to co-operating with Moscow on no-fly zones, ceasefire observers and the delivery of humanitarian aid in Syria.
Co-operating with Moscow, he said, would “lay a foundation for progress on the settlement of Syria’s political future”.
US president Donald Trump tweeted yesterday that the ceasefire “will save lives”.
Washington’s sudden interest in peacemaking is an about-turn for an administration that had seemed uninterested in getting involved in resolving Syria’s six-year civil war.
The US says its motives for co-operating with Russia lie in ending the conflict and alleviating the suffering of civilians but observers are sceptical.
They say Washington is trying to cement co-operation with Russia against ISIL as both countries seek to exit – or at least simplify – the complicated war that their forces have become ensnared in.
While Washington and Moscow have backed opposing sides in the civil war, the two countries have found common ground on fighting ISIL and wanting to end the conflict.
There is hope that the newfound co-operation between the US and Russia – and the ceasefire – will nudge along peace talks that have so far failed to find a settlement to the conflict.
The seventh round of UN-sponsored talks in Geneva is set to begin today.
Ramzi Ezzedine Ramzi, deputy to the UN’s Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura, said on Saturday that the ceasefire “helps create a suitable atmosphere for the talks, and we will see that on Monday”.
Frustrated with the chronic lack of progress since the UN-backed peace process began in 2012, a parallel set of negotiations sponsored by Russia, Iran and Turkey – all of which have been active in the conflict – was established in the Kazakh capital of Astana last year.
The new ceasefire will immediately face major challenges.
Analysts see Russia as unable to control its ally Damascus and keep the forces of president Bashar Al Assad from escalating the conflict.
And Moscow has even less of a hold on Iran-backed pro-government forces such as Hizbollah that are active across the country.
There are also questions over the capacity of the US to guarantee a ceasefire.
Although rebel forces have called for American intervention since the early days of the conflict, many became distrustful of Washington over the years as the US grew increasingly distant and wary of them.
Eventually, when president Mr Trump took office in January, the US withdrew from peacemaking efforts altogether.
It is not clear which rebel groups have signed on to the southern ceasefire and what guarantees they may have received from Washington and Amman.
The rebels have viewed past major ceasefires as regime ploys to prepare for assaults.
With the rebels still outmatched by government forces, there appears to be little reason for the Syrian government and its allies to agree to the latest ceasefire save to take a break and bow to Russian pressure.
At the peace talks in Astana last week, a Syrian opposition delegation condemned ceasefires that cover only parts of the country, warning that such agreements risked dividing the country and causing splits in the ranks of the opposition.
The continuation of fighting between rebels and government forces in other areas of the country will likely strain the ceasefire in the south-west, with opposition fighters elsewhere likely to call on their comrades to continue fighting if they are under attack.
As past attempts at ceasefires have shown, any flare-ups in the fighting could quickly derail the entire process.
Washington’s sudden interest in peacemaking is an aboutturn for an administration that had seemed uninterested in getting involved in resolving Syria’s six-year civil war