The ceasefire reached in the Syrian civil war after February 27, made possible by the joint efforts of the American and Russian diplomacies, started to show signs of “fatigue” toward the start of April. The culprits for this are difficult to identify, given the extremely complex conflict scene and the way in which the ceasefire was reached. Thus, on one hand there are the government forces of Bashar al Assad’s regime, which recently took over Palmyra, the location of the famous ancient ruins, by eliminating the troops controlled by the “Islamic Caliphate” (Daesh or ISIL). At the same time, toward the border with Turkey, in the Aleppo area, there are clashes between government and rebel forces, the former getting ready to launch an offensive in order to fully take over this important city. While peace negotiations between the factions were resuming in Geneva, at least 30,000 people were fleeing this area toward Turkey or other areas. At the same time, in the same area of the Turkish-Syrian border, Turkish armed forces shelled the Kurdish positions of PYD (Democratic Union Party), the party of Syrian Kurds, in order to prevent them from taking over a contiguous strip of territory. Turkey deems this aspiration as preceding a territorial autonomy that has a massive potential of influencing the territories inhabited by the Kurds in southeast Turkey, a region that is already under accelerated destabilisation. For Ankara, the PYD peshmerga, as well as the forces of autonomous Kurdistan, including the PKK, so from Syria and Iraq, along with PKK militants in Turkey, represent an existential threat. From Suleymanieh to Aleppo, Ankara has drawn a red line within which it considers herself justified to act in order to prevent the coalescing of the Kurds into their own state foreshadowing Turkey’s dismemberment. On March 27, the Turkish Premier was firm and transparent: “We are in the middle of a ring of fire. I will not announce the number of terrorist attacks we have foiled. (…) Turkey’s security zone starts from Latakia and through Aleppo, Mosul and Sulaymaniyah. (…) I see three main differences in our fight against terrorism now and in the past. First of all, it’s the first time that both Iraq and Syria cannot control their borders. In the past, we could divert our focus to only the Iraqi border when there was a threat.”

The Turkish Premier also referred to the fact that, apart from PKK and PYD, Ankara also has to fight against ISIL in Syria, as well as against 10 other terrorist organisations that have recently declared war on Turkey within its borders (including the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front – DHKP-C). We should add to this extremely complex conflict scene in Syria also the fact that PYD, the Kurdish party, was not accepted – given Ankara’s insistence – at the negotiations scheduled to take place in Geneva, while Al Qaeda and Nusra, very active in Syria, as well as ISIL, are excluded ab initio, being the targets of the allied coalition’s military actions.

In this context, Assad has resorted to a manoeuvre of political survival, but which serves to make things in Syria – and the negotiations in Geneva in particular – very difficult, if not to give them the coup de grace. On April 13, voters were asked to elect a new parliament, which has a decorative role within the country’s authoritarian regime. First, two mentions. The first concerns the UN Security Council decision of 18 December 2015, which established the ceasefire in Syria and the launch, through negotiations in Geneva, of a peace process, hence a provisional government that would prepare a new constitution and legislative elections, a robust roadmap for peace and reconstruction being subsequently established. The second concerns the fact that during the Russian-American talks in Moscow, on March 24, August was set as the month in which the preliminary stages of the implementation of the peace process should be finalized. Namely, besides upholding the ceasefire in Syria, reaching of an agreement in the negotiations in Geneva.

In such conditions, the Assad regime organising so-called legislative elections is not at all meant to simplify the peace process in Syria, on the contrary. Apart from the fact that the Assad regime controls only around a third of the Syrian territory, and 8 million inhabitants, so these are elections without legitimacy for the whole country, the elections prompted furious resistance from the anti-government opposition. These developments seriously worsen the situation. The U.S., France and the U.K. have already condemned this elections stratagem, only Russian and Iran claiming that they are in line with the current constitution of the Assad regime. The states opposed to the illegitimate elections – the results published on April 15 show a pro-government majority – argue that this runs counter to the UNSC decision since the resolution stipulates that elections should be held after a transition period of 18 months. These states present the referendum as a malformation of democracy, a “façade” (United Kingdom), a “disgrace” (France). Russia (Foreign Minister S. Lavrov) however argues that there is the need to avoid “a vacuum in the sphere of executive power,” being inferred that “a new constitution should emerge as a result of this political process, on the basis of which new, early elections are to be held.” The main negotiator of the opposition (representative of the High Negotiations Council) stated that the elections “are illegitimate – theatre for the sake of procrastination.”

Obviously, even contrary to Russia’s maybe deliberately cautious stance, Assad’s step is negative for the situation in Syria on multiple accounts. Apart from absent legitimacy, the very holding of elections results in the consolidation of distrust between the parties engaged in negotiations, especially since the opposition is asking for Assad’s removal for the period of the transition. But, such façade elections are delaying the very process of negotiations in Geneva, not to emphasise the even more serious fact that they accelerate the already ongoing process of frequent ceasefire violations. On the other hand, they fuel the attempts of various opposition groups interested in hastening Syria’s process of autonomisation – which, in a different register, renders actually useless a period of transition and hence the UN resolution becomes void – and at the same time amplifies the boldness of terrorist groups (Al Qaeda and Nusra). Despite Turkey’s and U.S.’s warnings, the Kurdish PYD has proclaimed its autonomy in the territories controlled, and ISIL, in these conditions, can consolidate its power within its own territory and expand it, acting offensively on the border with Turkey in recent days. It is worth mentioning that a Russian-American “task force” which oversees and takes measures in order for the ceasefire to be respected, is trying to de-escalate this situation, but the results are so far inconclusive and Assad’s move, which aims at much more, is of course among the main culprits. In Washington, where there is a far more applied view on the evolution trends of the military situation in Syria, it was assessed on April 14 that the first phase of the fight against ISIL concluded successfully, the second stage of rolling back the territory controlled by Jihadists having started. The latest news (April 18) show that the negotiations in Geneva are close to failing because of the actions of Assad’s forces in Latakia and Homs, undertaken with the tacit agreement of his external allies, but anti-government delegates have not left Geneva yet, technical talks with the UN emissary taking place. An AP dispatch (April 18) points out that “the cease-fire has held in most of Syria, except in the north, where it has practically collapsed. The Nusra Front is deeply rooted in the areas in northern Syria controlled by opposition forces, complicating the oversight of the truce.”

However, apart from these illegitimate elections, which overshadow an overall positive evolution in Syria and foreshadow difficulties in removing Assad in the near future – an implacable demand on the part of the Syrian opposition –, and apart from the sinuosity of the conflict resolution process already started with the ceasefire and the start of talks in Geneva, there is hope that the already started conflict resolution process in Syria and the agreement between Washington and Moscow on it will be finalized. In addition, another very important thing. There is already a general opinion among U.S. security experts that the full success of this process can only be attained in the context of a 30,000-man strong peacekeeping operation – under UN or rather NATO aegis –that would be deployed to war-torn Syria.