Hennadii LATII: It is in the interests of all countries of this region that Syria remains within its current borders

Hennadii LATII, an expert in Arab affairs, who worked in the Maghreb countries, has been appointed Special Envoy of Ukraine for the Middle East and Africa. He has been dealing with Arab countries at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 1993. In an exclusive interview with The Day, Mr. Latii assessed the latest events around Syria and told us about the impact that the Arab Spring had had on commercial and economic relations between Kyiv and the countries of this region.

Mr. Latii, Western experts believe that Syria has already broken up into three parts and, no matter whether or not Assad remains in power, that country will consist of three cantons established under the conditions of an armistice: the Assad regime supported by Hezbollah and Iran in the center, the Islamist movement in the north, and the Kurds in the north-east. What do you think of this?

“Firstly, I would not say categorically that Syria is 100 percent certain to disintegrate. The same was said a few years ago about Iraq, but the country still exists. Besides, it is still argued that Iraqi Kurdistan is in fact an independent state, but in reality it is an autonomous entity with certain prospects. Anyway, Iraq did not break up. The same applies to Syria. I must note that experts, by virtue of their job, are never held responsible for their opinions. For this reason, no diplomat or politician will take the liberty of predicting what will happen to that country – even in the longest term. Anything can happen. Syria may break up or remain within its borders.”

What do you base your assessments or forecasts on?

“Let us take, say, Libya. Even now we cannot forecast what will happen, for the current Libyan government is unable to exercise control over the entire territory of the country because it does not control the southern regions. Nobody will tell you what will occur there one or two years later. And today, when fighting is still on in Syria, when an international conference is to gather in early June, all we can do is hope that this will perhaps open some new positive prospects to settle the Syrian crisis. I strongly believe that it is in the interests of all countries of that region that Syria remains within the current borders.”

And what shape can this country take – with or without Assad?

“It is only up to the Syrian people to decide. Ukraine cannot possibly influence this in any way.”

And what will you say about the impact of the latest events on the Syrian conflict? What about the video that shows an opposition fighter cutting out and biting the heart of a governmental soldier? Is this going to further aggravate the crisis or speed up the resolution of the conflict?

“It is a video that has raised such an outcry in the world. I also have this kind of videos from the Internet, and my colleagues also give me some to watch. The war is going on, so there are extremists on both sides. It is just one of the extremists who made his way to TV screens.”

Should Syria break up, what do you think will be the way the three parts – Alawites, Sunnites, and Kurds – can coexist?

“I would not like to speak now about a likely disintegration of that country. That country still exists. I would be equally displeased if somebody began to speak about disintegration of my country, while it still exists. It is not up to me, a Foreign Ministry official, to foresee disintegration of a foreign state that has not yet broken up.”

Can Iraq serve as an example? There are also three ethnic and religious groups there – Sunnites, Shiites, and Kurds.

“If it becomes clear that the country cannot exist within the current borders, a compromise decision will, of course, be made. Incidentally, the Czechs and Slovaks found a solution. I think the Arabs will also find one.”

But the problem seems to be more difficult in this case: there are Kurds in Iraq, Turkey, and Syria, and their total number reaches an estimated 30 million. Do you think the Kurds will be able to unite and establish a state of their own, Kurdistan, while disintegration of Syria may provide an impetus to this?

“In principle, anything may happen. For example, there are two major peoples – Kurds and Tuaregs – that inhabit this region but do not have a state of their own. These peoples have long been eager to form a state. The Kurds have already come closer to this. But there should be a compromise solution between them and other states of the region.”

What will you say about the position of the West and Russia on the solution of the Syrian conflict?

“We have greatly appreciated the joint US-Russian proposal on holding an international conference. If negotiations are held between representatives of the current Assad government and various circles of the Syrian opposition as part of the same delegation, this will be a tremendous step forward and this will provide a good opportunity to find at last a way to peacefully settle the Syrian crisis.”

Some Ukrainian experts believe that Ukraine is not clearly spelling out its attitude to the Syrian crisis and advise Kyiv to be guided by principles, not interests, when expressing its position. What will you say to this?

“As for Ukraine’s position, we are very much concerned about the escalation of an armed conflict because it has already claimed over 80,000 human lives, while the number of Syrian refugees has exceeded 1 million.

“We think there is an estimated 500 Ukrainian citizens in Syria today. This year we have already evacuated 82 Ukrainian and 4 foreign citizens. Last year we evacuated 499 Ukrainian and 44 foreign citizens. As there still are our citizens in that country, we still have an embassy there. And the ambassador of Syria still remains in Ukraine.

“Ukraine is deeply worried over the danger of the Syrian domestic conflict extending to the neighboring countries, first of all, Lebanon and Jordan, where our state has considerable economic interests and a large Ukrainian community.

“As the Bashar al-Assad government has had international sanctions imposed on it, we are out of direct touch with the current Syrian leadership. We do not exchange delegations, nor do we operate a Kyiv-Damascus airline, and negotiations on concluding a bilateral free trade agreement have been put on hold.”

We do not supply arms to Syria…

“No. And, unfortunately, our trade with Syria is also on the wane. Our exports and imports dropped by 12 and 23 percent, respectively, in the first quarter of this year against the same period of the last year.”

And what do we supply to Syria?

“As a rule and above all, foodstuffs. This is what Syrians need most of all today.”

And what do we import from Syria?

“Our import is extremely small. In the past three months, we have bought in Syria various products worth a mere 396,000 dollars.”

If we sum up the processes in Africa and the Middle East, including the Arab Spring, what effect has it had on Ukraine’s cooperation with the countries of that region? Has this opened up new prospects for cooperation?

“I would say it is a two-pronged situation. I was an ambassador to Libya. I recently visited that country and spoke to the prime minister and the minister of foreign affairs. The situation is not very good there. But, as far as cooperation between Ukraine and Libya is concerned, the picture is better than it was before the revolution. On the other hand, there is a problem with some of our citizens. They did nothing to deserve to be sentenced to a 10-year term. So we are standing up for them. But Libya, as well as Tunisia and Jordan, is rather an exception. If you take Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, the UAE, and some other countries, our trade turnover with almost all of them has declined.”

You have been dealing with countries of this region for quite a long time, so can you say now, after the Arab Spring, what kind of democracy – Western, Russian, that of the Emirates, or perhaps Turkish – they are taking as a model?

“They are building something of their own – a democracy based on Muslim traditions. They want to build something of their own. They will never be a democracy like the US or Russia. Muslim traditions and democracy is a top priority for them. We will see the result a few years later.”

And what can you say about the influence of Turkey on the countries of this region?

“At least we can see that Turkey is trying to become a regional leader and is doing its utmost to be an influential state in this region.”