Russia is seeking to return the Assad regime to the Arab League
Al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper said that the anticipated tripartite summit between the Egyptian president, the Jordanian king, and the Iraqi prime minister in Baghdad will be a major stop to explore the results of the Russian diplomatic movement to return Damascus to the Arab League.
The newspaper added in a report that the Russian movement in this endeavor included the visit of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov, to Cairo yesterday, after his Gulf tour a month ago, in addition to a meeting of the Russian President’s envoy for Syrian affairs, Alexander Lavrentiev, with Bashar al-Assad in Damascus two days ago.
According to the newspaper, Moscow urged Arab countries to cancel the decision to freeze the membership of the Assad regime in the Arab League, and it also sought to free one billion dollars belonging to the government of the Assad regime “frozen” in Arab banks, so that it would use it to finance wheat and oil derivatives to Syria, while Moscow claims In return, by providing $ 500 million in a soft loan to Damascus, as part of measures to address the deterioration of the exchange rate of the Syrian Pound.
In parallel with the Russian efforts, the newspaper revealed that prominent Syrian figures have submitted what it called the “Arab Depth Initiative” to Arab countries, including Egypt, Jordan and Iraq, to enhance their contribution to “finding the most appropriate solution that is hoped to lead to achieving internal Syrian stability and to reinforce the Arab role.” As described.
According to the newspaper, the initiative is expected to take concrete steps, including “supporting dialogue with the Syrian government to discuss confidence-building measures, including: the release of detainees, encouragement of the return of displaced persons with Arab support, separation of powers to ensure the independence of the judiciary, and encouragement for the establishment of a new Syrian platform that enjoys the auspices of the university. Or sponsoring the Arab Depth Initiative, in addition to “dialogue with the Americans and the Russians, and providing them with the necessary reasons for the positions and projects that the initiative deems appropriate for implementation inside Syria.”
The initiative discussed in Arab countries also includes specific steps, among them work to “persuade Damascus to cooperate with the initiative to reach the formulation of an advanced project for local administration, resulting in a decentralized administrative and economic system, and then study governance projects that can be applied in Syria, starting with the parties, such as North Eastern Syria and the South “and persuade the so-called“ Self-Administration ”to build a new administration based on the principle of real power-sharing with other Kurdish parties and Arab clans” in that region.
