Syria's new rulers step up engagement with the world

DAMASCUS: Syria’s new rulers stepped up engagement on Tuesday with countries that deemed ousted president Bashar al-Assad a pariah, with the French flag raised at the embassy for the first time in over a decade.

Assad fled Syria just over a week ago, as his forces abandoned tanks and other equipment in the face of a lightning offensive spearheaded by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

Rooted in Syria’s branch of Al-Qaeda, HTS is proscribed by several Western governments as a terrorist organisation, though it has sought to moderate its rhetoric and pledged to protect the country’s religious minorities.

Turkey and Qatar, which backed the anti-Assad opposition, have reopened embassies in Damascus, while US and British officials have launched communications with Syria’s new leaders.

France, a key early backer of the uprising, sent a delegation to Damascus on Tuesday, with special envoy Jean-Francois Guillaume saying his country was preparing to stand with Syrians during the transitional period.

An AFP journalist saw the French flag raised in the embassy’s entrance hall for the first time since the mission was shuttered in 2012.

After meeting Syria’s new leaders, the United Nations humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said on Tuesday he was “encouraged”, and that there was a “basis for ambitious scaling-up of vital humanitarian support”.

German diplomats were also in Damascus on Tuesday, where they will hold talks that will focus on “an inclusive transition process in Syria and the protection of minorities” as well as “the possibilities for a diplomatic presence”.

Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, who heads HTS, stressed the need in a meeting with a delegation of British diplomats to end “all sanctions imposed on Syria so that Syrian refugees can return to their country”.

He also said Syria’s rebel factions will be “disbanded and the fighters trained to join the ranks of the defence ministry”.

“All will be subject to the law,” he added, according to posts on the group’s Telegram channel.

“Syria must remain united,” he said. “There must be a social contract between the state and all religions to guarantee social justice”.

The EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas said the lifting of sanctions and removing HTS from its blacklist would depend on “when we see positive steps, not the words, but actual steps and deeds from the new leadership”.

In Damascus’s old souk, many shops had reopened more than a week since Assad’s ouster, according to an AFP journalist.

Some shopkeepers were painting their store facades white, erasing the colours of the old Syrian flag that under Assad’s rule had become ubiquitous.

Meanwhile, Iran, which backed Assad throughout the civil war, said its embassy in Syria — abandoned and vandalized in the wake of Assad’s fall — would reopen once the “necessary conditions” are met.