Syrian conflict is internationalized

The confrontation between Syrian government and opposition has been drawing attention of the international mass media and organizations like the UN for 15 months now. After the massacre in one of Syrian cities, where over one hundred people were killed, Special Envoy for Syria Kofi Annan, author of the peace plan for Syria, said the situation was critical. And the UN has officially publicly acknowledged that the conflict in Syria transformed into a civil war. This was stated by the UN Under-Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations Herve Ladsous in his interview in New York. According to him, Syrian government lost some parts of territory and a few big cities to the opposition, and it wants to retake control of them. “Now we have confirmed reports that attack helicopters as well as tanks and artillery were used,” Ladsous said.

By the way, a few days ago the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blamed Russia for supplying Syrian government with attack helicopters. During her speech at the conference in Washington she said, “The US is worried that Russia ships attack helicopters over to Syria.” According to her, Washington is afraid that the helicopters can cause a “dramatic escalation of the conflict.” Meanwhile, Russia insists that everything they are shipping is unrelated to the conflict itself.

The Day asked Ukraine’s Special Representative, expert on the Middle East and Africa Yevhen MYKYTENKO to comment on the situation in Syria and make a forecast of any further possible developments in this country.

“Ukraine is deeply concerned by the situation in Syria. A few weeks ago it could be said that there are only local fights between the forces of government and opposition, or the Free Syrian Army. But unfortunately, now this conflict gains more features of a full scale civil war. This is confirmed by the UN representatives and the information we get directly from Syria. The Free Syrian Army troops and arms from Turkey and Lebanon continuously infiltrate the country. According to our data, opposition fighters are already being paid wages. And nobody is even trying to conceal the fact that this money is coming from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The increase in the number of Syrian refugees is troubling too. There are over 20,000 of them in Turkey and 25,000 fled to Jordan. Approximately the same number of refugees left Syria to seek shelter in Lebanon.

“Unfortunately, Syrian conflict has been internationalized already. Some Arab mass media inform that the special-mission units from Arab countries, as well as from Iran and Russia, were seen in Syria. However, this information is not confirmed.

“Today I had a phone conversation with a couple of my Syrian colleagues. They describe the situation in the country as a rather tense one. Common Syrians are experiencing difficulties already. They already stopped driving cars between the cities. So, mainly they sit at home and go to work. The highways between the cities are half-empty, because there is a high risk of being attacked on the road.”

Are there any new ideas of how to solve this conflict, except for Annan’s plan?

“Moscow expressed an interesting idea, it offered to hold an international conference to help cope with the situation in Syria. It is now being considered by many countries. It is known that Russia wants to hold this conference as soon as possible. It is planned to invite representatives of Syrian government and opposition (external as well as internal one), representatives of the member states of the United Nation Security Council, the League of Arab States, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the European Union, and Kofi Annan. But as for now, the US is opposing Iran’s participation in this conference, though it is widely known that Iran has a rather significant impact on the situation in Syria.

“On the other hand, the change of the leader of the Syrian National Council was made. Instead of Sorbonne Professor Burhan Ghalioun, for the next three months the Council will be headed by Swedish University Professor Abdul Basit Sieda. He is Kurd by descent, and he had been teaching philosophy for four years in Tripoli in the 1990s. Abdul Basit Sieda stated that he would like to establish a closer connection between the exiled Syrian National Council and the Free Syrian Army.”

But what actually is Syrian opposition? Because Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad claims they are mere outlaws.

“Except for the Syrian National Council mentioned above, which is located in Istanbul and acts primarily abroad, there is so-called opposition inside Syria itself. It is active, but very diverse at the same time. It consists of a large number of organizations.”

What are the principles and the ideology of Syrian opposition?

“It is not that easy to talk about Syrian opposition, because the majority of its members have been living outside the country for a long time. They have close relations with officials in many Western countries and representatives of some Arab countries of the Persian Bay.

“And when it comes to internal opposition, we think it is more constructive. It periodically carries out negotiations with representatives of Syrian government. As far as we know, Assad already signed a decree that empowered his vice president and former foreign affairs minister Farouk al-Sharaa to negotiate with Syria’s internal opposition. That is why the idea of holding an international conference on Syria is rather interesting and might help Kofi Annan carry out his mission and contribute to concretization of six points of Annan’s peace plan. However, the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not accept this idea and said that the deadline for making decisions is the middle of July, when it will be possible to finally evaluate the effectiveness of Annan’s mission in Syria. According to our data, a regular session of the UN Security Council is to be held in the middle of July, and this mission will be discussed there.

“In my opinion, president Putin’s visit to this region will have a great impact on the clarification of the situation in the near future. The visit is scheduled for the end of this month. Putin will visit Israel, Palestine, and, maybe, Jordan.”

Do you think that Libyan scenario is likely to be repeated in Syria? The formal external features are the same: the West support Assad’s removal from the government, and the only thing not planned is the military operation against Syria, which happened in case with Libya.

“According to my observation, nobody is interested in repeating Libyan scenario in Syria. Because, as time has showed, the so-called reforms in Libya are not doing any good either to the population or to the region itself so far. Unfortunately, the elections to the National Libyan Parliament were re-scheduled for July 7. The stagnation of Libyan economy still endures, foreign companies are not operating there today. Besides, Syria is different because it may become an arena of confrontation between Sunnis, Shiites, and the Alawi, it is more prone to a religious conflict. And this causes great anxiety.”

What way out of this dead end, a harsh disagreement between government and opposition, do you see? There was already said much about Syria ending up split in a few countries.

“It is true, some political experts and futurists are already tracing the borders of four countries on the map of Syria. But let us remember how this country was created in the first place. At the beginning of 19th century, politicians drew on their maps and created a country. It is clear that the time for dissipation of Syria has not yet come. It is too early to talk about it, but it is still possible. Not so long ago, a foreign affairs minister of one of the Arab countries said that nobody can ever know what will happen in the Middle East tomorrow.”

Do you think Syrian government is going to agree to have a dialog with the opposition, or Assad will try to destroy it?

“I hope that there is still a chance of starting a normal, sincere dialog between Syrian government and opposition. However, unfortunately, this chance dwindles with every coming day. But at the same time, it is better to sit at the negotiations table for 365 days than to fight for a day.”

How did the situation affect the work of Ukrainian diplomatic mission in Syria?

“Ukraine is represented in Damascus with a charge d’affaires ad interim. A small number of people works at the embassy, and those are men only, all the families and children were taken back to Ukraine long ago. We are worried by the fact that there is no direct air traffic connection between Kyiv and Damascus at the present.

“Nowadays we are not talking about the evacuation of Ukrainian citizens from Syria. According to data presented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there are 2,400 of our fellow countrymen in that country. Since the beginning of 2012, 43 citizens of Ukraine returned home safely with the MFA’s assistance. Today there are no evacuation requests from Syria to Ukraine at the embassy in Damascus.”