Syria’s Civil War
Syria’s Civil War
Syria’s Civil War
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The arrival of the first major Russian diplomat in Damascus since the fall of Bashar al-Assad is launching negotiations over Moscow in Syria.
By Paul Sonne and Christina Goldbaum
Paul Sonne has in Berlin and Christina Goldbaum from Damascus.
The time had come to bend the knee — or at least bend to reality.
A delegation of Russian diplomats arrived on Tuesday in a caravan of Blanca SUV for a Damascus summit and a non-unfeasible task: throw the Bas al-Assad.
To do this, the delegation wins over other people who had been mercilessly bombed by the Russian army, helping Mr. Al-Assad for years.
Awaiting them was Ahmed al-Shara, who had survived a decade of Russian airstrikes to emerge as Syria’s new interim leader. He stood in the presidential palace and faced the Kremlin’s envoys for a long-awaited reckoning.
The conversations that followed, the first between Moscow and Damascus since the end of the war of almost 14 years, are resolved. But they represented the beginning of potentially written negotiations on the role, if necessary, Russia will play in Syria of the postwar period, after having lost its candidacy to maintain Mr. Al-Assad in power.
The assembly demonstrated the kind of geopolitical horse trade that began in the wake of Syria’s civil war, with the prospect of remaking the Middle East. Stony Eyed Realpolitik.
“I think the general air in Damascus is, ‘We Syrians don’t need a fight with anyone at this point, including our former enemies,’” said Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington. “So de-escalation and pragmatism are the names of the game.”
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