HASAN BELAL/EPA
People celebrate in the street after Syrian rebels captured the city of Damascus.
Putin gives asylum to the Syrian president and the UN Security Council meets this Monday. Opposition flag raised at the Syrian embassy in Moscow.
Some believed in his death, but the deposed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his family are actually in Moscowaccording to Russian news agencies cited by AFP.
After opposition forces, a Kremlin source confirmed the presence in the capital of the former Syrian leader, who was in power for 24 years. This Monday, amid snowflakes, the flag of the Syrian opposition was raised at the Syrian embassy in Moscow.
“Assad and his family members arrived in Moscow. Russia, for humanitarian reasons, decided to grant them asylum,” said the same source, according to TASS and Ria Novosti.
A Russian presidency confirmed later that President Vladimir Putin granted asylum in Russia to the former Syrian president and his family.
“It is clear that these decisions cannot be made without the head of state. It’s his decision”, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov, quoted by the official TASS agency.
Peskov declined to specify the whereabouts of Bashar al-Assad and said that Putin did not plan to meet the deposed leader yet, according to the US agency AP. “There is no meeting [planeado entre Putin e Assad] on the official agenda of the Russian President”, he stated, insisting that Russia, like the rest of the world, was surprised by the events in Syria.
After the rebels declared this al-Assad Sunday, after 12 days of offensivethe president of the highest political body of the Syrian opposition in exile, the Syrian National Coalition (SNCF), Hadi Al Bahra, assured EFE that the Syrian capital “will be safe in two or three days”at a time when Israel leaves a guarantee: Syria has become the fourth front on which it maintains a ground operation, joining Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon.
O Bashar al-Assad’s palace was burned and looted during the lightning offensive that ended five decades of Baath rule.
BREAKING! War in Syria 🇸🇾 People have stormed the presidential palace of Bashar al-Assad in Damascus
— Skenderbeü_ (@AncientAlien01)
This Monday, selfies are taken at the door and in the reception rooms.
Syrian opposition fighters have taken over the presidential palace in Damascus after a rapid offensive seized control of the capital, marking the end of the al-Assad family’s 53-year rule of the country.
— in pictures
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish)
“We can finally breathe and walk around“, a Syrian citizen told . “We can give our opinion. We can say what bothers us without being afraid. So yes, there is a change. I hope it’s a good change. But we’ve been living under false hope for 13 years [de guerra civil].”
At Russia’s request, the United Nations Security Council to meet emergency on Monday afternoon, from 3pm, for a closed-door meeting on Syria, according to several diplomatic sources cited by AFP.
Rebels defend Russian bases in Syria
The Syrian rebels who took Damascus “guaranteed the security” of Russian bases in the country, according to the same Russian agencies.
“Russian officials are in contact with representatives of the Syrian armed opposition and their leaders have guaranteed the security of Russian military bases and diplomatic institutions on the territory of Syria, said a Kremlin source.
Vladimir Putin’s Russia, along with Iran, was Bashar al-Assad’s main ally and became militarily involved in the Syrian conflict in 2015. Vladimir’s regime Putin has two large bases in the country’s coastal provinces, through which it operates in the Mediterranean and the Middle East.
“Historic opportunity“, says Guterres
Russia, China and Iran expressed concern about the end of the regimewhile most Western and Arab countries were pleased that Damascus was no longer in the hands of the Assad clan.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, Calls for calm and avoidance of violence in Syriaafter the fall of the regime that he sees as a “historic opportunity to build a stable and peaceful future”, “after 14 years of brutal war and the fall of the dictatorial regime”.
“There is much work to do to ensure an orderly political transition to renewed institutions. I reiterate my call for calm and to avoid violence at this sensitive time, while protecting the rights of all Syrians, without distinction,” said Guterres in a note shared on the United Nations portal.
Guterres argued that the support of the international community is needed to guarantee an inclusive and comprehensive political transition that responds to the population’s aspirations.
“The sovereignty, unity, independence and territorial integrity of Syria must be restored”, stressed the UN Secretary-General, who asked that the inviolability of diplomatic and consular facilities and personnel “must be respected in all cases” .
Pointing out that it will be the Syrians who will determine the future of Syria, Guterres said that the UN will be committed to supporting them to “build a country where reconciliation, justice, freedom and prosperity are realities shared by all”.
“Act of Justice” — But Beware of Rebels
US President Joe Biden attributed the fall of the regime to the fragility of the countries that supported it, namely Iran and Russia, unable to protect their ally.
Classifying this collapse of the regime in Syria as a “act of justice”Biden admitted, however, that this is also a “moment of risk and uncertainty”, remembering that some of the rebels have a dangerous terrorism history. In a White House statement, Biden said the fall of the Syrian regime is proof that Moscow is losing influence in the Middle East.
“This is because Ukraine, supported by its allies, erected a wall against the invading Russian forces, inflicting damage on the Russian forces, which left Moscow incapable to protect its ally in the Middle East”, explained the North American leader.
The American President recalled that, over the last four years, his Government adopted a clear policy towards Syria, maintaining sanctions against the regime of Bashar al-Assad and supporting Israel’s freedom of action against Iranian networks in the region.
“A new era has begun”
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said that Ankara wants to see a new Syria that lives in harmony with its neighbors and is ready to support the country’s reconstruction. Turkey will also work to help refugees safely returned to Syria.
“A new era has begun in Syria, now is the time to focus on the path forward,” said Fidan, quoted by .
In power for more than half a century in Syria, the party Baath was, for many Syrians, a symbol of repressionwhich began in 1970 with the coming to power, through a coup d’état, of Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, who led the country until his death in 2000.
In 2015, the United Nations Security Council approved the Resolution 2254with the aim of defining a political solution to the civil war in Syria, which broke out in 2011, and establishing a political transition process, under the aegis of the UN.
