... Eastern crises and to which extent the interests of Moscow and Tehran overlap or contradict each other. Some of the key issues of the political situation in the region were assessed, such as the situation in Idlib, the prospects for a political process in Syria, Israel’s role in the region’s future, the path to Syria’s reconstruction and the impact of U.S. policies on the emerging new order in the Middle East. Both Russia and the Islamic Republic of Iran regard each other as necessary components ...
... off the coast of Egypt, Tamar and Leviathan off the coast of Israel, and Aphrodite off the coast of Cyprus, etc. Additionally, the so- called Block 9 is in a part of the field disputed by Lebanon. We can suppose there are large gas reserves off the Syrian coast, as well. By 2020, development had already been launched on several fields but, on the whole, both this process and its implementation are proceeding in fits and starts since matters have to be approved and agreed between unstable governments ...
It is time for Moscow to decide on an algorithm for providing economic aid to Damascus
The ninth year of internal armed conflict has brought new challenges to Syria. According to
data from the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia
published on September 23, 2020, the damage done to the Syrian economy by the end of 2019 exceeded USD 442 bn. Still, under sanctions and with no international ...
The Carter Center Report
The Carter Center Report
The U.S. has maintained sanctions against Syria since the 1970s. However, the majority of current
U.S. sanctions on Syria were imposed in two broad phases: a first phase in the 2000s that U.S.
policymakers stated was a response to Syrian support for terrorism, activities in Lebanon, and other
...
... Russia itself in the event that its understanding with Israel fails or if its relations with the United States or even Turkey become strained.
“Sponsoring” and “guaranteeing” internal settlements and national dialogue conferences such as the Syrian National Dialogue Congress held in Sochi and the hundreds or even thousands of meetings with political and armed opposition actors seeking reconciliation and settlement.
Establishing “parallel tracks” for the stalled Geneva process, mediated through the Astana and Sochi processes, and charge it with resolving the ...
... al-Assad’s cousin Rami Makhlouf, the most prominent of the “state bourgeois” whom Syrians nicknamed the “children of the power” (
Awlad alsulta
), falling out of favour. Last year, he was rumoured to have been placed under house arrest for his refusal to donate the bulk of his 5-billion-dollar fortune to advance the Syrian President’s personal efforts to involve the private sector in the reconstruction of the country. Foreign commenters put forward an ambiguous version claiming that Makhlouf had a complicated relationship with
Bashar al-Assad’s wife Asma
, who ...
... November 2020. But by signing Caesar Act, the Americans restricted the next president and put the US Syria policy in concrete direction. This means for the government in Damascus that it should prepare for implementing its own agenda. It is not the USA, but Syrian presidential elections in 2021 that matter for Damascus and those engaged in the Syrian settlement. Syria’s survival depends on the government’s ability to adapt to new sanctions, establish order in its own economy while preserving contacts ...
... leaders, whose ambitions are, at this historical juncture, under powerful pressure from both within and without; this test may be even more relevant there than in other parts of the crumbling, yet interconnected world.
“Old” internal conflicts in Syria, Libya and Yemen, new-type protest movements demanding a change of the ruling elites (the “everyone means everyone” slogan) in Algeria, Lebanon and Iraq, balancing on the brink of an armed conflict in the Persian Gulf – this chronic instability ...
... shoe to fall will likely be the New START Treaty, which the Trump administration seems happy to let expire next February.
Accusations of Russian infringements of the treaties and agreements, as well as the condemnation of Iranian activities outside the ... ... headquarters of the major powers and hotlines between their leaders would help deal with incidents: U.S.-Russian deconfliction in Syria has demonstrated the effectiveness of maintaining contacts. Yet deconfliction has to be balanced against the profound lack ...
... The stand-alone evolution of US relations with the Kurds in Iraq (in contrast to the Kurds in general) is also evident through the different US foreign policy approaches developed towards Kurdish entities.
In contrast, the US relations with the Kurds of Syria and Turkey are both still to be found at an early stage. Limited interactions to have taken place are those through events such as the Syrian crisis (March 2011) or earlier the capture of Abdullah Ӧcalan in February 1999, which was facilitated ...
