Con Coughlin :
As ceasefires go, the cessation of hostilities in Syria negotiated by the US and Russia has hardly got off to the most auspicious start.
Within hours of the ceasefire being implemented, Russian warplanes had resumed their bombing missions, while Iranian-backed forces loyal to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad strengthened their stranglehold over besieged rebel fighters in Aleppo. At the same time Turkey, which is committed to preventing the Kurds from forming a break-away state, embarked on a massive military build-up along the Syrian border.
On this evidence it is hard to decide whether the ceasefire is the first step towards ending Syria’s brutal war, or is merely a pause before the conflict enters a new, and potentially even more dangerous, phase.
And yet, for all the shortcomings of the deal negotiated in Munich by US Secretary of State John Kerry and Sergei Lavrov, his Russian counterpart, the ceasefire represents probably the best and only chance European nations have of tackling the migrant crisis that now poses a grave threat to the security of their own borders.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (left) and US Secretary of State John Kerry shake hands, after a UN Security Council meeting on Syria in New York last month
Five years ago, when the Syrian conflict first erupted, I doubt there were many among the million or so refugees who have made their way to Europe in the past year who had any intention of starting a new life in a foreign land. On the contrary, I imagine the majority were quite content living in the same cities, towns and villages in Syria and Iraq that, in most cases, their ancestors had occupied for centuries before them.
The only reason they now find themselves clamouring at the Macedonian border for permission to travel into the EU’s heartland is that the intensity and complexity of the Syrian conflict has made it impossible for them to remain. If there were any reasonable prospect that the fighting might end soon, many would prefer to return to their homes and rebuild their lives rather than embark on a new life in Europe.
Indeed, the main reason sprawling refugee camps have taken root in countries adjacent to the Syrian border, such as Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, is that most of the occupants hoped they were moving there as a temporary measure until the violence subsided.
The reasons why so many have now abandoned the camps in favour of making the hazardous journey to Europe are twofold. Firstly, the failure of previous attempts by Western leaders to halt the fighting has led many to conclude that the Syrian conflict will match the civil war in neighbouring Lebanon – which lasted for 15 years – for longevity.
Another factor has been the woefully inadequate funding of aid programmes to support refugees based in the region. With the exception of Britain, which has contributed around £1billion to funding refugee camps around Syria, the majority of world powers have fallen well short on the aid front. The same criticism applies to oil-rich Arab states, which could do much more to resolve a crisis which, after all, is taking place on their own doorstep.
All that could change, though, if a proper ceasefire were to take hold in Syria, and a political framework established for resolving the conflict, thereby enabling ordinary Syrians to embark on the painful process of rebuilding their country.
Given the current situation on the ground in Syria, such a scenario might appear wildly over-optimistic. Yet the fact Washington and Moscow have managed to negotiate the outline of a ceasefire agreement is at least a step in the right direction, one that must be pursued with vigour if Europe’s migration nightmare is to be brought to an end. For, ultimately, the answer to Europe’s migration crisis lies in the Middle East, not Brussels.
An important first step would be to try to make the Russians understand that a ceasefire is not a ceasefire when you carry on bombing your foes. The Russians’ excuse for carrying on with their air operations is that they are only targeting terrorists, rather than Syrian rebels. This is fiction. The majority of Russian air strikes are taking place against pro-Western Syrian opposition groups, such as the Free Syrian Army, in cities like Aleppo. Very few Russian bombs are being dropped on the positions of Islamic State (Isil), the group most responsible for sponsoring acts of Islamist terrorism both inside Syria and beyond.
Moreover, the best way to persuade the Russians to take the ceasefire agreement more seriously would be for Western leaders to acknowledge that Moscow, together with its Iranian allies, has succeeded in its objective of saving the Assad regime. One of the West’s biggest errors in this conflict has been to demand Assad’s removal, when the biggest threat to Western security undoubtedly comes from Isil.
Syrian volunteers and their relatives wave the national flag and portraits of President Bashar al-Assad as they celebrate at the end of a paramilitary training conducted by the Syrian army in al-Qtaifeh, 50 kms north of the capital Damascus on February 22, 2016.Syrian volunteers and their relatives wave the national flag and portraits of President Bashar al-Assad as they celebrate at the end of a paramilitary training conducted by the Syrian army Photo: AFP/Getty
An acknowledgement by Western leaders that Assad’s future is no longer a major issue would certainly help to reassure Moscow and Tehran that their long-term interests in Syria were secure. And that could lay the foundations for a more wide-ranging political settlement that might one day result in millions of displaced Syrians being allowed to return to their homes.
As ceasefires go, the cessation of hostilities in Syria negotiated by the US and Russia has hardly got off to the most auspicious start.
Within hours of the ceasefire being implemented, Russian warplanes had resumed their bombing missions, while Iranian-backed forces loyal to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad strengthened their stranglehold over besieged rebel fighters in Aleppo. At the same time Turkey, which is committed to preventing the Kurds from forming a break-away state, embarked on a massive military build-up along the Syrian border.
On this evidence it is hard to decide whether the ceasefire is the first step towards ending Syria’s brutal war, or is merely a pause before the conflict enters a new, and potentially even more dangerous, phase.
And yet, for all the shortcomings of the deal negotiated in Munich by US Secretary of State John Kerry and Sergei Lavrov, his Russian counterpart, the ceasefire represents probably the best and only chance European nations have of tackling the migrant crisis that now poses a grave threat to the security of their own borders.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (left) and US Secretary of State John Kerry shake hands, after a UN Security Council meeting on Syria in New York last month
Five years ago, when the Syrian conflict first erupted, I doubt there were many among the million or so refugees who have made their way to Europe in the past year who had any intention of starting a new life in a foreign land. On the contrary, I imagine the majority were quite content living in the same cities, towns and villages in Syria and Iraq that, in most cases, their ancestors had occupied for centuries before them.
The only reason they now find themselves clamouring at the Macedonian border for permission to travel into the EU’s heartland is that the intensity and complexity of the Syrian conflict has made it impossible for them to remain. If there were any reasonable prospect that the fighting might end soon, many would prefer to return to their homes and rebuild their lives rather than embark on a new life in Europe.
Indeed, the main reason sprawling refugee camps have taken root in countries adjacent to the Syrian border, such as Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, is that most of the occupants hoped they were moving there as a temporary measure until the violence subsided.
The reasons why so many have now abandoned the camps in favour of making the hazardous journey to Europe are twofold. Firstly, the failure of previous attempts by Western leaders to halt the fighting has led many to conclude that the Syrian conflict will match the civil war in neighbouring Lebanon – which lasted for 15 years – for longevity.
Another factor has been the woefully inadequate funding of aid programmes to support refugees based in the region. With the exception of Britain, which has contributed around £1billion to funding refugee camps around Syria, the majority of world powers have fallen well short on the aid front. The same criticism applies to oil-rich Arab states, which could do much more to resolve a crisis which, after all, is taking place on their own doorstep.
All that could change, though, if a proper ceasefire were to take hold in Syria, and a political framework established for resolving the conflict, thereby enabling ordinary Syrians to embark on the painful process of rebuilding their country.
Given the current situation on the ground in Syria, such a scenario might appear wildly over-optimistic. Yet the fact Washington and Moscow have managed to negotiate the outline of a ceasefire agreement is at least a step in the right direction, one that must be pursued with vigour if Europe’s migration nightmare is to be brought to an end. For, ultimately, the answer to Europe’s migration crisis lies in the Middle East, not Brussels.
An important first step would be to try to make the Russians understand that a ceasefire is not a ceasefire when you carry on bombing your foes. The Russians’ excuse for carrying on with their air operations is that they are only targeting terrorists, rather than Syrian rebels. This is fiction. The majority of Russian air strikes are taking place against pro-Western Syrian opposition groups, such as the Free Syrian Army, in cities like Aleppo. Very few Russian bombs are being dropped on the positions of Islamic State (Isil), the group most responsible for sponsoring acts of Islamist terrorism both inside Syria and beyond.
Moreover, the best way to persuade the Russians to take the ceasefire agreement more seriously would be for Western leaders to acknowledge that Moscow, together with its Iranian allies, has succeeded in its objective of saving the Assad regime. One of the West’s biggest errors in this conflict has been to demand Assad’s removal, when the biggest threat to Western security undoubtedly comes from Isil.
Syrian volunteers and their relatives wave the national flag and portraits of President Bashar al-Assad as they celebrate at the end of a paramilitary training conducted by the Syrian army in al-Qtaifeh, 50 kms north of the capital Damascus on February 22, 2016.Syrian volunteers and their relatives wave the national flag and portraits of President Bashar al-Assad as they celebrate at the end of a paramilitary training conducted by the Syrian army Photo: AFP/Getty
An acknowledgement by Western leaders that Assad’s future is no longer a major issue would certainly help to reassure Moscow and Tehran that their long-term interests in Syria were secure. And that could lay the foundations for a more wide-ranging political settlement that might one day result in millions of displaced Syrians being allowed to return to their homes.
(Con Coughlin is the Defence Editor of The Telegraph)
