UN envoy calls for ‘inclusive’ transition in Syria during talks with rebel leader
The United Nations envoy to Syria has told Islamist militants who toppled Bashar al-Assad that they need to oversee a “credible and inclusive” transition, as world powers sought to engage with the country’s new rulers.
Geir Pedersen, a Norwegian diplomat, met the Syrian rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, formerly known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, in Damascus on Monday. He also met the interim prime minister, Mohammed al-Bashir.
A statement released by Pedersen’s office said the envoy had offered UN support and stressed “the need for a credible and inclusive Syrian-owned and led political transition”.
Diplomats have been scrambling for influence over whatever government replaces the Assad regime. Assad fled to Moscow a week ago after a bloody 13-year civil war that descended into a proxy conflict for multiple regional powers – principally Iran, Turkey and Russia .
The European Union foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said she had instructed the bloc’s top diplomat for Syria to go to Damascus on Monday to make contact with the new government.
Iran and Russia, which backed Assad, will have lost leverage while Turkey and some Gulf states will be seeking to build on their active support for anti-Assad rebels. Western countries largely backed the opposition early in the civil war but dithered as Islamist groups, such as the now-dominant Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), became prominent.
Meanwhile, neighbouring Israel has also sought to exploit the power vacuum to weaken any future Syrian administration,
conducting hundreds of strikes on strategic weapons and equipment stockpiles
. Israeli troops have alsoseized land
on the frontier.On Monday, a UK-based Syria monitor claimed Israeli airstrikes hit missile warehouses in what it said were the “most violent strikes in the Syrian coast region” in more than a decade.
Sharaa has said he is not interested in conflict with Israel. “There are no excuses for any foreign intervention in Syria now after the Iranians have left. We are not in the process of engaging in a conflict with Israel,” he told Syrian state media.
Pedersen flew to Damascus directly after an international meeting in Aqaba, Jordan, where top diplomats from the Arab states, the US, Turkey, France, Germany and the UK met on Saturday to agree
would be a “more hopeful, secure and peaceful future” for Syrians.The statement from the envoy’s office on Monday said the “transitional political process” must “produce an inclusive, non-sectarian and representative government”.
Syria’s new rulers have sought to reassure the country’s minorities they will be protected and included. Still, there are concerns that the interim administration run by HTS, which is composed largely of fighters from Syria’s Sunni majority may sideline large minority populations, which include Shia Muslims, Druze, Alawites and Christians.
On his arrival in Damascus on Sunday, Pedersen
the fall of the Assad regime had created “great hopes”, but added: “We all know there are many challenges still ahead of us. So, we need to get this right from the very beginning.“So, and you know, I’ve been saying all along that we need to get the political process underway that is inclusive of all Syrians.”
To help Syria’s economy, Pedersen has called for the US, UK and EU to end sanctions imposed on Syria when Assad was in power. To do this, they would need to remove HTS, which emerged as an al-Qaida offshoot but softened its politics, from their lists of “terrorist” organisations.