Syria’s new authorities announced on Tuesday that they had reached an agreement with the country’s groups on their dissolution and integration into the regular defence forces. Photos published by the state-run SANA news agency showed the country’s new leader, Ahmed al Sharaa, surrounded by the heads of several armed factions. The meeting “ended in an agreement on the dissolution of all the groups and their integration under the supervision of the ministry of defence”, said a statement carried by SANA and the authorities’ Telegram account.
On Sunday, Sharaa had said the new authorities would “absolutely not allow there to be weapons in the country outside state control”. Last week, the military chief of Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al Sham — the group that spearheaded the offensive that toppled president Bashar al Assad -- said that Kurdish-held areas would be integrated under the new leadership, and that “Syria will not be divided”. Thirteen years of civil war in Syria has left more than half a million people dead and fragmented the country into zones of influence controlled by different armed groups backed by regional and international powers.More than 25,000 Syrians have returned home from Türkiye since Bashar al Assad was overthrown by HTS rebels, Türkiye’s interior minister said on Tuesday. Türkiye is home to nearly three million refugees who fled the civil war that broke out in 2011. “The number of people returning to Syria in the last 15 days has exceeded 25,000,” Ali Yerlikaya told the official Anadolu news agency. Ankara is in close touch with Syria’s new leaders and now focussing on the voluntary return of Syrian refugees, hoping the shift in power in Damascus will allow many of them to return home.
Yerlikaya said a migration office would be established in the Turkish embassy and consulate in Damascus and Aleppo so that the records of returning Syrians could be kept. Türkiye reopened its embassy in Damascus, nearly a week after Assad was toppled by forces backed by Ankara, and 12 years after the diplomatic outpost was shuttered early in Syria’s civil war. Yerlikaya said one person from each family will be given the right to enter and exit three times from January 1 to July 2025 under regulations to be drafted upon Erdogan’s instructions. Syrians returning to their country will be able to take their belongings and cars with them, he added.
Meanwhile, Qatar called on Tuesday for the quick removal of sanctions on Syria following the ousting of president Bashar al Assad by armed groups. “We call for intensified efforts to expedite the lifting of international sanctions on Syria,” foreign ministry spokesperson Majed al Ansari told a regular briefing. Qatar’s call came a day after a high-level delegation visited Damascus. The Qatari embassy there reopened on Sunday, ending a 13-year rift between the two countries. “Qatar’s position is clear,” Ansari said. “It’s necessary to lift the sanctions quickly, given that what led to these sanctions is no longer there and that what led to these sanctions were the crimes of the former regime.” — AFP
Doha was one of the main backers of the armed rebellion that erupted after Assad’s government crushed a peaceful uprising in 2011. The international community has not rushed to lift sanctions on Syria, waiting to see how the new authorities exercise their power. — AFP
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
