Iraq & Syrian Civil Wars - Page 311

Bashar al-Assad is not going anywhere.

Four years after President Barack Obama’s August 2011 ultimatum that the Syrian president must go, world leaders descending on New York for the United Nations General Assembly are closer to agreeing that Assad can stay.
Now in its fifth year, civil war in Syria has blown up into a regional conflict and created millions of refugees testing Europe’s border. The exodus finally convinced German Chancellor Angela Merkel to wade in and admit no solution is possible without Assad. In so doing, she publicly broke with what was once a prevailing Western position: Assad, step aside.

“We will have to talk with many actors,” Merkel said after a European Union summit in Brussels. “Assad will be part of that, but also others like the U.S. and Russia as well as important regional partners like Iran or Saudi Arabia.”

The shift comes as Russia is taking a more hands-on approach to Syria, a long-time ally, after using its veto power repeatedly on the UN Security Council to block anything that smacked of intervention by Western countries.

President Vladimir Putin sent troops as well as fighter jets, armored personnel carriers and attack helicopters to Syria and is coming to the UN ready to discuss with other power brokers about Assad’s future -- a previously taboo subject.

Thousands of desperate Syrians pouring into the European Union by land and sea have made the 28-nation bloc more willing to compromise and that strengthens Putin’s hand, according to a European diplomat in Moscow who isn’t authorized to discuss internal deliberations and asked not to be identified.

Obama Shift?

That leaves Obama. The U.S. administration may also be edging toward an easing of its aversion to a transitional role for Assad and is willing to work with Russia. Secretary of State John Kerry has spoken three times about Russia’s presence in Syria with his counterpart Sergei Lavrov and plans to meet him this weekend in New York.

More tellingly, Obama will hold a rare in-person meeting with Putin next week when both address the 193-nation body. Their previous encounters were notable for the tense body language and briefest exchanges of pleasantries.

But now the timing might be right. There is a potential for a deal on Syria between the U.S. and its allies and Russia and it’s good that Putin is going to New York to meet with Western leaders, a second European diplomat said.

Since the Russian search for influence depends on something of the Assad regime remaining, and a significant Russian presence as well as political and military Russian activity, “this probably gives a greater chance to some sort of settlement than whatever’s been done in the past,” said Richard Barrett, senior vice president of The Soufan Group, a U.S. security consultancy.

On September 28 2015 17:15 Gzerble wrote:

The Kurds aren't going to get help from Turkey. Turkey don't really mind Assad, but they have a history of being (and this is phrasing it gently) unkind to the Kurdish people in their own country. At a certain points, Turkey outlawed the use of the words "Kurds", "Kurdish", and "Kurdistan", which may still hold if I remember correctly. I'd expect Turkey to turn a blind eye as they don't like any of the sides involved, and only have something to lose should they intervene in any way.