Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a message to Syria’s “interim president” Ahmed al-Sharaa on Thursday, offering “practical cooperation” and “friendly” relations to “stabilize the situation in the country as soon as possible.”
Sharaa is a former al-Qaeda lieutenant whose Syrian insurgent operation broke away from the international terrorist organization and rebranded itself as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a jihadi group dedicated to overthrowing Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.
HTS finally pulled that off in December after more than a decade of grueling civil war in Syria. One of the major reasons Assad suddenly fell, after seeming to survive the long internal conflict, was that his patrons in Russia and Iran were distracted and weakened by their wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
Sharaa now rules Syria as the leader of a military junta. He has attempted to rehabilitate his image, dressing and speaking as a statesman instead of a guerrilla leader, and he has promised to run an inclusive government that will submit itself to elections in a few years.
Quite a few powers in the West and Middle East are eager to give Sharaa the benefit of the doubt because they want a piece of Syrian reconstruction, and they hope a stable government could alleviate the massive humanitarian crisis in Syria. Even a sudden massacre two weeks ago of Alawites, the Shiite sect that birthed and supported the Assad dynasty, was not enough to make the Europeans give up on Sharaa.
Russia wants a piece of the action in Syria, too, especially after having invested billions in the now-defunct Assad regime. The problem is that much of Sharaa’s insurgent coalition detests the Russians for propping Assad up. Soon after HTS captured Damascus, it began sending strong signals that Russia would lose its strategically vital naval and air bases in Syria.
The Kremlin on Thursday said Putin’s letter to Sharaa confirmed “Russia’s continuing readiness to develop practical cooperation with the Syrian leadership on the whole range of issues on the bilateral agenda in order to strengthen traditionally friendly Russian-Syrian relations.”
That half-century of “traditionally friendly” relations was with the despised and brutal dynasty Sharaa and his allies spent almost 15 years attempting to overthrow, but Russia’s new diplomatic line is that it always cared about the Syrian people, not just the Assad family.
The Kremlin hammered the “friendly relations” talking point in statements earlier this month, clearly signaling Sharaa that Moscow was ready to take his phone calls and cut profitable deals with his government.
For his part, Sharaa has been ambivalent about the fate of Russia’s bases in Syria, but he had a friendly phone conversation with Putin in February and held the door open for further talks.
The recent unrest in Syria might have given Sharaa some reasons to reflect on Russia’s long relationship with Assad. The massacre of Alawites began after squads of Assad loyalists reportedly attacked HTS fighters and their allies. Assad himself took refuge in Russia after fleeing Damascus in December, as did some of his top officers.
On Friday, the first crude oil tanker arrived in Syria since the fall of Assad. The tanker Aquatica is registered in Barbados but is managed out of Azerbaijan. Several other tankers are headed for Syria, and analysts say all of them could be connected through Russia, which could be holding up its end of a deal to supply oil to Syria in exchange for keeping its bases.
Read the full article here
