An international conference for Syria was held in Kazakhstan capital Astana with the initiative of Russia, Turkey and Iran on January 23 and 24. Rojava, the US, France, the UK and Germany were excluded. The US didn’t send a committee while US Ambassador to Kazakhstan George Krol attended the meeting as an observer. Syria, Turkey, Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan and UN Special Representative for Syria Staffan de Mistura also attended. Abdulheki Beşşar, administrator for the ENKS that is used as a battering ram, and ENKS Chair Ibrahim Bıro were also in Astana as advisors for FSA groups. Turkmens were at the table directly for the first time with Ahmet Osman, one of the commanders of the Sultan Murat Brigade. Ahrar-uş Şam who attended the secret meetings in Ankara weren’t in Astana. In the opening meeting, the parties took their places around the same table. Then the talks continued through guaranteer countries in different rooms. In previous conferences, SNC and SMDK and few of those who fought on the field would attend. In Astana, those who fight on the ground were in the majority. Damascus and Iran met with this large of an armed group officially for the first time in the open. The demand from FSA groups for Iran and Hezbollah to pull their militia back from Syria wasn’t accepted. Chief negotiator for the FSA, Ceyş-ul Islam (Army of Islam) leader Muhammed Alluş’s attempt to add the YPG as a terrorist organization to the Astana manifesto wasn’t accepted.

Referencing the UN General Assembly decree No.2254 and stressing the desire of armed groups to attend the Genova 4 Conference was the admission that no solution would come out of meetings like Astana. It was decided that Russia, Turkey and Iran would set up a “joint mechanism” to monitor the ceasefire. Weren’t Turkey and Russia declared as guaranteers when the ceasefire was declared? A significant factor was that all parties refused to sign the Astana outcome manifesto, citing their own reasons. For example, secularism was left out of the outcome manifesto due to the insistence of Turkey and the FSA.

Russia achieved two results. They made Turkey lay out the red carpet of legitimacy under Assad’s feet. They made Turkey and the FSA, who lost blood in Bab, Aleppo, Bayırucak and Idlib and thus lost morale, accept “joint efforts” with Fatah Al Sham (Al Nusra), along with ISIS. Russia also presented a draft Syrian Constitution that suggested cultural autonomy for the jihadist groups who attended the Astana talks with a low hand and proportional representation for religious and ethnic groups. (It is an insult to the Syrian peoples that it was prepared by Russia) In sum, the meeting was a fiasco for the jihadist block who tied their future and their autonomy to Putin. Thus, they have turned towards Genova once more.

Then, in a tactical move, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, who was criticized by Rojava for being the aerial constituent for the Al Bab operation, and his aide Mihail Bogdanov took a meeting for Syrian opposition in Moscow with 14 constituents attending on January 27. PYD France representative Halid Isa and PYD Russia Representative Abdusselam Ali attended the meeting in Rojava’s name. This was both atonement for Russia complying with the call to “exclude Kurds from Astana” and a move to keep Kurds away from Trump, and a message to Turkey that they have a wide field for maneuvering if Turkey moved away from them. Russia has employed similar tactics in the past as well. When there were international meetings, they didn’t insist that Rojava attended. One of the factors that triggered this invitation was the US-MSD meetings.

ILHAM EHMED: TRUMP WILL CONTINUE

The US-MSD meetings took place right before Astana. MSD (Meclisa Suriya Demokratik - Syrian Democratic Council) Co-chair Ilham Ehmed and Assyrian Assembly Chair Besam Ishaq held diplomatic meetings in the US between January 17 and 22. The meetings were held before the 45th President of the US Donald Trump assumed office. The traffic that started with Trump’s team continued with the Congress, the State Department and White House representatives after the inauguration ceremony. I asked Ilham Ehmed about the Washington meetings: “We held meetings with members of Congress. We met with the State Department official for Syria and his team. We met with Brett McGurk. We also had a meeting with the advisor for Trump who ran his election campaign.” Brett McGurk was Obama’s Special Envoy for the coalition against ISIS. He was one of the people to go back and forth among Rojava, Hewler and Ankara. While Trump appointed different people for most of the posts, he chose to keep McGurk in his position.

I asked what Trump’s team thought about Rojava and the building of a federation. The answer was: “We tried to talk to them about the situation in Syria in general and Northern Syria in particular. The war against ISIS continues. Who will wage this war, not only in the military sense but in the ideological sense as well? The system we are developing is the most suitable system for this.” So, will the Trump administration continue the coordination with Rojava? “Both military and political support will continue. The federation was the main agenda in the meetings. They are generally positive towards it and they consider it to be right,” was my answer. Ilham Ehmed also added that they will be the ones to liberate Raqqa, as Turkey’s insistence to “send the TAF to Raqqa” continues. So, it seems that Trump will not be touting either Putin’s or Erdoğan’s whims for Syria. Iran focusing on Idlib may also trigger a new crisis faultline.

Source: Özgürlükçü Demokrasi Newspaper