DOHA-Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov has said he and his Iranian and Turkish counterparts are calling for “an end to hostile activities” in Syria, where opposition fighters have made a rapid advance in a major challenge to President Bashar al-Assad.
Speaking to Al Jazeera at the Doha Forum in the Qatari capital on Saturday, Lavrov said Russia, Iran and Turkiye expressed support for “dialogue between the government and legitimate opposition” in Syria.
The three countries have been involved since 2017 in the so-called Astana Format talks seeking a political settlement in Syria, and their top diplomats – Lavrov, Iran’s Abbas Araghchi and Turkiye’s Hakan Fidan – met in a trilateral format on the sidelines of the Doha Forum.
“We called for [an] immediate end to hostile activities. We stated, all of us, that we want the [United Nations] Resolution 2254 to be fully implemented, and for this purpose, called for the dialogue between the government and legitimate opposition,” Lavrov said.
Syria-led process
Resolution 2254 (PDF) outlines a commitment to the “sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity” of Syria and says the only solution to the years-long conflict will be through “an inclusive and Syrian-led political process”.
Asked whether Moscow – a key backer of al-Assad and the Syrian army – believes the Syrian president can hang onto power, Lavrov said he was “not in the business of guessing”.
“We agreed today with Iran and Turkiye to issue a strong call, which I described, and we will be doing some specific steps to make sure that this call is heeded,” he said.
Lavrov’s comments came as fighters led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) armed group have made a lightning advance in Syria over days, taking control of key cities, including Aleppo and Hama.
Late on Friday, the rebels said they had reached the edge of Homs, a strategic city linking the capital Damascus to coastal parts of the country where al-Assad enjoys support from the Alawite community.
In a post on Telegram on Saturday afternoon, an opposition commander said the HTS-led group’s forces had begun “operations” inside Homs.
Opposition fighters have also made gains in Deraa and Sweida, in southwestern Syria near the border with Jordan, and taken control of some towns in the Damascus countryside.
‘Much weaker’
Reporting from Kilis, near Turkiye’s border with Syria, Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar said the Syrian government has lost control of a majority of the country’s territory.
“We are seeing a Syrian government that is much weaker than in 2016, when it was backed strongly by Russia, by Iran, by [Lebanese group] Hezbollah on the ground,” he said.
“Russians are extremely busy in Ukraine. They have withdrawn a majority of their military equipment and personnel from the Khmeimim airbase [in Syria] to Ukraine,” Serdar explained, while Iran and Hezbollah have also been embroiled in fighting against Israel.
“All of these factors have created such a vacuum.”
At Saturday’s Doha Forum, Lavrov said Russia was “absolutely convinced of the inadmissibility to use terrorists like HTS to achieve geopolitical purposes”.
“We’re trying to do everything not to allow terrorists to prevail; even if they say they are no longer terrorists,” he said.
Downplaying fears
Samuel Ramani, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said the Russian foreign minister “was trying to project an image of strength and being in control”.
“He was trying to downplay fears that al-Assad’s regime in Syria is on the imminent brink of collapse, instead talking about how he’s doing all he can to promote the sovereignty of Syria and to try to stabilise the situation,” he told Al Jazeera.
Ramani said the opposition forces’ rapid advance appears to have caught Moscow off-guard.
“They have been watching and they have been spectators just like us to what’s unfolding in Syria, and they don’t really seem to have a very clear game plan to keep al-Assad in power.” I aje
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