The insurgents today declared Damascus “free” from President Bashar al-Assad after a 12-day offensive launched by a coalition led by the Islamist group Levant Liberation Organization along with other factions backed by Turkey to defeat the Syrian government.
The deposed president of Syria, Bashar al Assad, received asylum in Russia this Sunday, December 8, according to a Kremlin source informed the TASS agency.
«The president of Syria, Assad, arrived with his family in Moscow. “Russia, based on humanitarian criteria, offered him asylum,” the source said.
He added that “Russia has always advocated the search for a peaceful solution to the Syrian crisis.”
“We start from the need for talks to be resumed under the auspices of the United Nations,” he commented.
According to the Kremlin representative, “Russian officials are in contact with representatives of the Syrian armed opposition, whose leaders guaranteed the security of Russian military bases and diplomatic institutions on Syrian territory.”
The insurgents today declared Damascus “free” from President Bashar al-Assad after 12 days of offensive launched by a coalition led by the Islamist group Levant Liberation Organization along with other factions backed by Turkey to defeat the Syrian government.
Until now, Al Asad’s whereabouts were unknown and rumors circulated about the possible downing of his plane or that he would be in an African nation.
Shortly before, the Russian Foreign Ministry reported that Assad had left the country after holding negotiations with several participants in the armed conflict and giving instructions to carry out a peaceful transition of power in the Arab nation.
Russia requests meeting at the UN
Russia requested this Sunday an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council to address the situation in Syria after the overthrow of Bashar al Assad.
«Russia requests urgent consultations behind closed doors of the UN Security Council. We hope that the consultations will take place in the second half of Monday, December 9, in New York,” Dmitri Polianski, Russia’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, wrote on his Telegram channel.
UN Secretary General António Guterres said that “after 14 years of brutal war and the fall of the dictatorial regime, the Syrian people can today seize a historic opportunity to build a stable and peaceful future.”
He also called for “avoiding violence in this sensitive period, protecting the rights of all Syrians, without distinction.”
The Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araqchi, had demanded “political dialogue” between the Syrian government – of which they were political allies – and opposition groups, an issue that the United States also commented that they were willing to support.
US President Joe Biden assured that he “will talk to all Syrian groups” in a transition process led by the United Nations to close the era of “brutality” of the Al Assad family in the country.
For its part, the European Union said it was ready to help rebuild a Syria that protects minorities after the fall of Assad’s “cruel dictatorship,” declared the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
«The end of the Al Assad dictatorship is a positive and long-awaited event. It also shows the weakness of Assad’s sponsors, Russia and Iran,” EU diplomat Kaja Kallas said on the social network X.
With information from AFP
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