Syria’s caretaker PM meets with members of transitional government
Syria’s newly appointed caretaker prime minister, Mohammed al-Bashir, says he’s been meeting with members of the transitional government.
“[W]e invited members from the old government and some directors from the administration in Idlib and its surrounding areas in order to facilitate all the necessary works for the next two months until we have a constitutional system to be able to serve the Syrian people,” al-Bashir told Al Jazeera.
“Today, we had other meetings to restart the institutions to be able to serve our people in Syria,” he added.
Syria’s new PM says time for ‘stability and calm’
Syria’s new transitional Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir told Al Jazeera in a televised interview that his country needed peace and stability after nearly 14 years of war.
“Now it is time for this people to enjoy stability and calm,” al-Bashir said in his first interview hours after being appointed.
US remains in close contact with Turkiye, Syrian opposition groups: Kirby
US officials are in close touch with both Syrian opposition groups and Israeli officials as the situation develops, White House spokesperson John Kirby tells reporters. Kirby said President Joe Biden is staying fully briefed by his national security team and his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, was travelling to Israel on Wednesday.
He said the US was not involved in any Israeli operations in Syria, and that Israel had made clear these were “temporary measures to ensure their own security.”
Israel has admitted to carrying out hundreds of strikes across Syria on government and military infrastructure, and also seized a zone of territory next to its occupied Golan Heights.
Kirby also said the US remains in close contact with Turkiye and US-backed Kurdish Syrian forces (SDF) from the northern city of Manbij after an advance by Turkiye-backed rebels. The US and Turkiye reportedly reached an agreement to ensure the safe withdrawal of Kurdish Syrian forces from Manbij yesterday.
Of course the US plays the apologist again. Kirby forgets to mention their own bombing runs on Syria
https://www.commondreams.org/news/us-bombs-syria-again
Responding Monday to the latest attacks on Syria by U.S. forces, Danaka Katovich, national co-director of the peace group CodePink, told Common Dreams: "We condemn the U.S. airstrikes in Syria. The U.S. has sowed chaos in Syria and the entire region for years and the Biden administration ordering ongoing airstrikes is a disappointing sign that they have no intent on reversing their deadly policy of interventionism."
U.S. and coalition forces have killed and maimed at least tens of thousands of Syrians and Iraqis during the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations as part of the anti-ISIS campaign and wider so-called War on Terror.
US troops staying in Syria: White House
US troops will be staying in Syria after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad as part of a counterterrorism mission focused on destroying ISIL (ISIS) fighters, a top White House official says.
“Those troops are there for a very specific and important reason, not as some sort of bargaining chip,” US Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer said in an interview at the Reuters NEXT conference in New York.
US troops “have been there now for the better part of a decade or more to fight ISIS … we are still committed to that mission.”
Asked directly whether US troops are staying, Finer said, “Yes.”
Europe not extending any olive branches, only ready to send all Syrian refugees back.
EU’s Kallas warns of sectarian violence in Syria
There are legitimate concerns about the risks of sectarian violence in Syria and a resurgence of extremism in the country, says the EU’s new foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas.
“For Putin and the Iranian regime, the fall of Assad is a huge blow for both,” Kallas also said, in comments made before an EU Parliament committee hearing.
Danish and Austrian leaders call on Syrian refugees to return home
The leaders of Denmark and Austria have called on Syrian refugees to return home following the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime.
“You are a refugee temporarily when conditions make it impossible to live where you come from,” Danish Prime Minister Frederiksen said on Tuesday. “When those conditions change, I firmly believe and encourage people to return to their country to help rebuild it. I would do the same myself.”
The prime minister stressed that many Syrians in Denmark do not hold permanent residency and said, “Therefore, of course, we expect them to go back now.”
Meanwhile, the Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer called on the European Union to take a coordinated approach on Syrian refugees.
“Europe must promote the return of Syrians to their homeland and thus support the reconstruction of the country,” he said.
Last edited by SvennoJ - on 10 December 2024
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