The outgoing year has become one of long-hoped-for diplomatic achievements for Syria, which saw the creation of the constitutional committee under the UN auspices, but also one of major military tensions and escalations, most notably the Turkish operation against Kurdish militia in Syria's north.
GENOA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 04th January, 2020) The outgoing year has become one of long-hoped-for diplomatic achievements for Syria, which saw the creation of the constitutional committee under the UN auspices, but also one of major military tensions and escalations, most notably the Turkish operation against Kurdish militia in Syria's north.
SYRIAN-LED, SYRIAN-OWNED, NOT SYRIAN-MADE
The decision to form a body of 150 Syrians tasked with amending and rewriting the nation's constitution was made back in January 2018, during the Syrian National Dialogue Congress organized by Russia in Sochi. However, it was not until October 30, 2019, that the committee could hold its first session. Geir Pedersen, who succeeded Staffan de Mistura as the UN special envoy for Syria at the end of 2018, made convening the committee, something his predecessor failed to achieve, his most cherished goal.
Indeed, Pedersen adopted a set of tactics that differed greatly from those of de Mistura. He visited Damascus several months after having been appointed, made a series of trips to the capitals of the Astana guarantors � Russia, Turkey and Iran � while working on the final list of the committee's members, and maintained a remarkably low profile in the media, protecting his efforts from potential leaks that could derail the entire process.
In a recent interview with the RT broadcaster, Syrian President Bashar Assad said de Mistura just "could not remain neutral." The same thing cannot be said about the current envoy, however, who is considered to be more neutral by his peers. Moscow has said it counted on Pedersen's resilience to any foreign influence since the very beginning of his mandate.
"Everyone should be independent in the United Nations. Of course, we believe that he will not be subject to any influence. We hope for this. If he continues to stick to these principles, this will be a great help in moving the negotiations process forward," Russian Special Presidential Envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentyev told Sputnik in an interview in April, when asked if he believed that Pedersen was an independent figure.
Despite Pedersen's best efforts, however, leaks did happen. In February, reports started to appear claiming that the United Nations was against six Names on the preliminary list of the committee members. It was never clarified whether the objection came from the government or opposition side, or was the position of the UN itself, but arguments between the Syrians, Astana guarantors and the United Nations over the body's composition continued in the following months.
The most problematic issue was agreeing on the list of candidates for the civil society portion of the committee, or "middle Third," as the UN put it. It was the only part of the group the UN was tasked with choosing, and the importance of its role could not be overstated, given that the civil society vote could be crucial when the two other thirds � members from the government and from the opposition � are in a standoff.
After two rounds of Astana talks on Syria in Kazakhstan in April and August, and a number of separate meetings with each of the Astana guarantors and the Syrian sides, Pedersen by September had in his hands the final list of 150 members � 50 from each group � accepted by everyone. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced the formation of the committee in his letter to the Security Council later that same month, and on October 30 the official launch ceremony took place at the UN Palais in Geneva.
The constitutional committee managed to have two sessions before the year-end. The first, held the week after the committee's launch, was deemed successful, as participants managed to agree on the rules of conduct and hear each others' views during initial statements. However, the second meeting, which was held at the end of November in a narrower format of 45 members, exposed long-standing differences between the sides of the conflict. The government delegation insisted on discussing terrorism issues, as it did during the Geneva talks in previous years, while the opposition side asserted the committee was created specifically for constitutional matters and proposed to discuss terrorism outside of the body. As a result, no meaningful sessions took place, and Pedersen did not announce the next meeting's date. There is an understanding within his office that there will be no announcement until the sides agree on an agenda.
Nevertheless, the very creation of the constitutional committee is considered by all stakeholders involved in the Syrian crisis as a major diplomatic achievement and breakthrough. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Special Presidential Representative for Syria Alexander Lavrentyev have repeatedly emphasized that the work of the committee should not be affected by any deadlines or foreign interference, and that the body must remain Syrian-owned and Syrian-led.
The UN special envoy seems to share this view.
"What is important is that we have an agreement, you know, with the government and with the opposition, that we will have a commitment to work seriously on moving forward within the constitutional committee and to start addressing the important issues. And then, this [the creation of a new document and elections date] will take only life on its own, and, as I said, it will have to be up to our Syrian friends how they are moving forward within the constitutional committee," Pedersen told Sputnik in an interview on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September, before the committee was officially launched.
When asked about whether the committee would always convene in Geneva, Pedersen said that "always is a very strong term" and that "we will start in Geneva and then we will see how it develops."
Indeed, after two first sessions held in 2019, some members of the committee, in particular those from the government side and Moscow platform of opposition, repeatedly voiced the desire to move the committee's work to Damascus. At the Astana talks in December, Lavrentyev said he was not excluding the possibility that this might happen one day "when conditions allow."
SYRIA'S NORTH REGRESSES INTO CONFLICT HOTSPOT
Meanwhile, on the ground, the situation regressed. What started as an optimistic year upon the White House's announcement about the complete elimination of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group (banned in Russia) in February-March turned into Nusra (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, outlawed in Russia) terrorists taking almost complete control of Idlib province by May and eventually a Turkish military operation in northern Syria in October.
Idlib remained a major problem throughout 2019 despite the fact that the Turkish and Russian presidents signed a memorandum on its de-escalation in September 2018. The number of terrorists in the province grew constantly, and at every Astana-format meeting in Kazakhstan � in April, August and December � Russia and Syria claimed Turkey had not exerted enough pressure on the radical military groups there, as the country had pledged to do in the memorandum.
During a UN Security Council meeting on Syria in May, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin said that terrorists from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (outlawed in Russia) had managed to establish control over 99 percent of the Idlib zone, compared to the 60 percent they had in November 2018.
Against this backdrop, Turkey started raising the issue of its long-standing concerns regarding the presence of Kurdish militia along its border with Syria, including in Idlib. Specifically, Turkey's attentions were on the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), which the country considers to be terrorists.
In July, Ankara held its first discussion with Washington about a safe zone in Syria, east to the Euphrates river, that would be free of Kurdish militia. However, the United States, which had been allied with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), had a sluggish approach to these talks.
In early August, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu expressed Ankara's lack of patience regarding the US approach to the safe zone's creation and declared that Turkey would create it on its own if necessary. Shortly thereafter, Ankara and Washington agreed to establish a joint operations center in Turkey to manage the formation of the zone.
Nevertheless, this did not prevent Turkey from announcing its plans for a cross-border military operation in northern Syria to clear the border area of the Kurdish troops. As soon as Ankara announced this intention, US troops withdrew from the area, leaving the previously allied SDF without support. The SDF took this as a betrayal, and its General Command stated the United States had failed to meet its obligations.
On October 10, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the start of the operation, dubbed Peace Spring. Ankara's goal was presented as an effort to not only clear the area of Kurdish militia, but also liberate it from the Islamic State terrorists. The cleared area would then be made into a safe zone to where a portion of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees that currently live in Turkey could be relocated � Erdogan promised to send back one million in the first phase, while two million more would follow afterward.
Damascus, however, had different views on Turkey's intentions.
"Nobody believes that Turkey will repatriate 3 million Syrian refugees to this area; this is a deceptive humanitarian slogan. Even if they wanted to, this is not possible because it would create a conflict between the owners of the land, the cities, the villages, the homes, the farms, and the fields on the one hand, and these newcomers, on the other; those who own these places will never renounce their rights in these areas, so this would create an ethnic conflict," President Assad said in an interview with Sputnik and Rossiya 24 in November.
Having been abandoned by its traditional allies and facing a military offensive, the SDF called on Russia and Damascus to take a firm stance against the operation.
"The Turkish invasion would threaten the integrity of Syria, as Turkey occupies many regions in Syria, such as Afrin, Idlib, Jarabulus, and Al Bab. That is why Russia, Iran, and the Syrian regime should take a firm stance against this attack," Badran Jiakurd, a senior Syrian Kurdish official, adviser to the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, told Sputnik in an interview in October.
Soon after, the SDF turned to Russia for help in mediating a dialogue with Damascus. What resulted was an agreement being reached on October 14 under which Syrian troops were deployed along the border line to protect the Syrian population and territorial integrity. Damascus from the very beginning called the offensive illegal � the European Union, the Arab League and even the US Senate strongly condemned it.
An agreement with Damascus to ensure protection against Turkey's anti-terror operation was the best option for the Syrian Kurds under these circumstances, Ahmed Suleiman, a member of the political bureau of the Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party in Syria, told Sputnik in an interview in October.
"The US has played a negative role, being an obstacle to [the SDF's] understanding with Damascus. Damascus was not ready for any agreement with the SDF. But despite the lack of time, the best option is to reach an agreement with Damascus and not rely on regional and international contradictions ... The SDF has limited options," Suleiman said.
Russian mediation efforts went further. On October 22, the Russian and Turkish leaders met in Sochi and after more than six hours of talks signed a 10-point memorandum under which Turkey would suspend its operation if the Kurdish militia pulled out of the region within a given time frame. The agreement also stipulated that Russian military police and Syrian border guards commit themselves to facilitating the withdrawal of Kurdish militia from an 18-mile border zone, outside the area of Operation Peace Spring. Russia and Turkey have since begun joint patrols along the border.
The Kurdish withdrawal was completed by the end of October. During the latest Astana talks in December, Russian Special Presidential Representative on Syria Alexander Lavrentyev said the situation in northern Syria had stabilized and the Russia-Turkey agreement on the safe zone was in the implementation phase.
US' NONCOMMITTAL PLEDGE TO LEAVE
Another aspect of the Syrian conflict that demonstrated high volatility throughout the outgoing year was the presence of US troops in the country.
Washington officially announced its decision to pull troops out of Syria in late December 2018, so when the White House made a statement in February 2019 about the "complete elimination of IS" in Syria, the international community logically expected the US to end its military presence shortly thereafter.
However, it was not until early October, just before Operation Peace Spring, that US troops started to withdraw from the area. In explaining its decision, the White House stated it would not "support or be involved in" Turkey's operation.
The day after the Russian-Turkish memorandum that ended the offensive was signed, Washington amended its withdrawal decision. Trump announced that a limited number of US troops would stay in Syria to protect the oil there and would decide in due time what to do with it. A senior US administration official told reporters shortly thereafter that the United States would review and monitor how oil from fields protected by IS troops in northeastern Syria was sold.
At the end of October, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said US forces in Syria would continue to counter Islamic State operations with its partners and further maintain its existing mission to protect oil fields there from the terror group. Going after the IS was considered necessary even though its "complete elimination" had been announced several times and even after it was claimed on October 30 that Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the leader of the organization, had been killed.
Moscow accused the United States of looting the country's energy resources and urged Washington to return control of the oil fields to the Syrian government.
On November 13, Trump confirmed that the US intended to retain control of the oil fields despite scaling down its military presence in the area. US Special Representative for Syria Engagement James Jeffrey later reassured reporters that Washington was not doing anything illegal by securing the oil fields. Soon after, Arabic media reported that a US military convoy had positioned itself near several oil deposits in northeastern Syria � about 90 percent of Syrian oil reserves are concentrated there.
In an interview with China's Phoenix Television media outlet on December 16, Syrian President Bashar Assad said that the United States was selling oil to Ankara from these oil fields. He added that previously oil had been sold through Turkey by IS and Tahrir al-Sham terrorists.
Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said in November that the United States was using the revenue from selling Syrian oil to prop up loyal armed groups in Syria.
"Our Defense Ministry has given a thorough and document-based account of what the Americans do with the oil. ... The oil is transported out of Syria and, of course, the United States supports loyal armed groups with the revenues from [selling] that oil," Lavrov told the International Review program on Russia 24 tv channel.
The issue was discussed in detail during the latest Astana-format talks in Nur-Sultan, which ran from December 10-11.
On December 17, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov said that he had discussed with Assad restoring Damascus' control over Syria's oil-rich areas, adding that the situation was improving.
All of these developments, including the presence of the US troops, control over oil fields, situation in Idlib, return of the refugees and work of the constitutional committee, will most likely be discussed as early as February of the new year during a quadrilateral summit on Syria in Istanbul between Turkey, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. Moreover, the Russian and Turkish leaders are supposed to have a separate meeting ahead of the summit.
