'New steps, new commitments would be proof of good faith from this new Syrian authority'

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00:00Hello, everyone, I'm François Picard.

00:13How to keep it together in Syria, that's the objective of a conference attended by its

00:17new foreign minister, a conference hosted by France as Paris calls for the easing of

00:25sanctions that have been in place for decades, for more than a decade, this after the December

00:33fall of the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

00:37For more, let's cross now to France 24's James André.

00:42At the conclusion of that summit, James, you're just back recently from Syria, where you've

00:48witnessed a nation that's right now at peace, trying to keep it together, and that is in

00:55desperate need of international aid after the pullout of pro-Iran militias as well.

01:03James, your thoughts on how this conference meshes with the reality on the ground?

01:09Well, look, Emmanuel Macron has just spoken here at the conference minutes ago.

01:15And in fact, he gave his broad view as to what needed to be done.

01:19Now, what we could say is that it appears that this conference has borne fruit in a sense,

01:24because indeed, the president spoke pretty early, in fact.

01:27And I'd say one of the main informations is that he confirmed that indeed he will invite

01:32Ahmad al-Shar to visit France and the French presidency in weeks, maybe months to come.

01:38But quite rapidly, he also said that France was in favor of rapid lifting of the sanctions.

01:45Basically, the president outlined four main goals.

01:48The first one is security, saying that indeed France and its partners consider that Daesh

01:53is very much, that the Islamic State group is very much still a risk in eastern Syria,

01:59a risk that needs to be kept under control.

02:02France also reaffirming its support to the Syrian Democratic Forces.

02:06Those are the Kurdish-led forces that helped the international coalition on the ground

02:10beat the Islamic State group, and is now guarding its prisoners in all these areas that were

02:15liberated from the so-called caliphate at this stage.

02:20Also calling for reinforcements of the international coalition against terrorism that indeed fought

02:26the organization.

02:27So that's one of the four items.

02:29The second one is governance, saying that he wants an inclusive governance for the whole

02:33of Syria, for all Syrians.

02:35Then the humanitarian situation, he says, needs to be tackled.

02:39France will be spending 50 million euros on helping Syria, saying that indeed the French

02:47Development Agency will be working on the ground soon with the government in order to

02:52decide what priorities need to be addressed first.

02:55And fourthly, it is the justice problem, the fact that you need to put in place a transitional

03:00justice in order to keep the country together, as you were saying, to keep it calm, and indeed

03:07to make sure that those who have committed crimes under Bashar al-Assad's rule are indeed

03:11punished.

03:12And that means, obviously, taking care of the evidence and indeed putting this mechanism

03:17in place.

03:18Now, you were saying I had been to the country, and that is true.

03:21I came back probably about 10 days ago.

03:23What I can tell you is that lifting the sanctions is absolutely crucial in order for Syria to

03:29stabilize.

03:30I mean, we ourselves, with Ashraf Abid, my colleague, we went on patrol with policemen

03:35who were not being paid, tackling the issue of people who were basically taking arms and

03:41just trying to take control of their neighbor's hangar or garage or flat, arguing that indeed

03:48these buildings belong to former Bashar al-Assad army generals, for example.

03:54We also saw that indeed the difficult task of unifying a new Syrian army is at hand.

04:01And all this needs money, of course.

04:03And then there is everything to do with the general public, like power outages.

04:06There are only about two to three hours of power a day in Damascus.

04:10This is a problem that needs to be solved.

04:12And you could talk about a lot of other sectors, transport, medicine.

04:17There are a lot of problems to be solved, and all these need international cooperation

04:21and money.

04:22And it does appear that a step has been taken today.

04:24And Emmanuel Macron, as you mentioned, expressing support for the Kurdish-led SDF militias,

04:31which in the northeast of the country have taken on ISIS.

04:35Does that put him on a collision course among those attending?

04:39Turkey's deputy foreign minister, Turkey, which is squarely against the SDF.

04:45Yes, absolutely.

04:47This is probably the thorniest issue in Syria right now when it comes to unifying the country

04:53and indeed to pacifying it and to disarm all militias and armed groups.

04:59Obviously, the Syrian Democratic Forces are a very powerful group that is backed by the

05:04United States of America, though it is unclear what Donald Trump's posture is when it comes

05:09to Syria.

05:10But what we do know is that, indeed, some sort of agreement needs to be reached when

05:14it comes to the Syrian Democratic Forces.

05:16And the big question mark, of course, is Turkey.

05:18For Turkey, it is absolutely unacceptable that the YPG militia, that is the backbone

05:25of the Syrian Democratic Forces, obtains some sort of territorial or military control

05:30just the other side of the border in northeastern Syria.

05:34On the other hand, very clearly, the new transitional government in Syria is calling upon the Kurds,

05:41saying, look, join the army, join us, and let's work together.

05:45The Kurds themselves are actually right now fighting with some Turkish-backed militia

05:50in the northern central part of the country.

05:52So this is a very, very tense issue and complex one.

05:56And now France has made it very clear where it stands, and says, we will not let our allies

06:00down.

06:01James Andre, many thanks for that live update.

06:04For more, let's go to Washington, D.C.

06:06She's a French diplomat, Souhir Madini, visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near

06:12East Policy.

06:14Thank you for being with us here on France 24.

06:21So before we talk about the main issue, I guess you could call it, which is how to lift

06:29those sanctions, first of all, your reaction to what we just heard there with the French

06:34president squarely expressing his support for the SDF and for these Kurdish-led militias.

06:42That has been up to now the policy of the United States, the U.S., which, by the way,

06:46sent a low-level delegation to this conference.

06:49Is it going to be the policy of the Trump administration?

06:54So far, it's really hard to answer this question, because at this stage, it seems like there

07:01is no clear and definitive U.S. strategy.

07:07As you talked before, Syria is not the only priority now for the new administration.

07:15Ukraine is on the top list.

07:19Everybody talks about the tariffs.

07:20So this explains also why so far there is no clear U.S. strategy, and maybe one of the

07:29explanation of the representation the U.S. presents now at this conference.

07:37And what we see now from the new American administration is that it initiated the most

07:44far-reaching overhaul of U.S. foreign assistance in decades, which has huge consequences in

07:53Syria.

07:54And on the military side, once again floated the idea of removing U.S. troops from Syria,

08:03with on this particular topic, some mixed messages coming with the Defense Department

08:11reportedly had made plans for possible withdrawals, but at the same time, Marco Rubio, Secretary

08:18of State, recently saying that there is an opportunity in Syria, and that the United

08:25States would in a way have to pursue in a way that opportunity, which may imply keeping

08:34these troops so far, so that a withdrawal would be in U.S., would be done eventually,

08:44but in a way that protects U.S. interests.

08:49Because what many allies now are worried of when it comes to a U.S. withdrawal from Syria

08:56without proper planning and caution, is that to have a withdrawal would have Afghanistan-like

09:06consequences.

09:07This is one of the biggest worries from many allies, and probably the U.S. administration

09:18will also take this point into consideration when they will decide in the coming period

09:24what they will do.

09:26Because the fall of Bashar al-Assad, signaling what some have seen as a generational shift

09:30in the region, with Assad close to Iran, close to Russia, hence the race, if you will, to

09:39ease the sanctions, as the French are calling for.

09:42Now, you have co-authored a paper in which you have said that lifting U.S. and EU sanctions

09:50without coordination and without concrete benchmarks would be a mistake.

09:54What does that mean, concrete benchmarks?

09:56The general idea is to answer two quick questions.

10:03Should Western countries and their Arab allies trust the new authorities completely without

10:11asking for proof of their good faith?

10:15The answer would be obviously not.

10:17But at the same time, should they respond to the new de facto leader's request for assistance?

10:24And here, the question is obviously yes.

10:28So the challenge, I would say, in the period ahead is to walk a thin line between these

10:34two main goals, meeting the needs of Syrians, as your correspondent just said, the reality

10:40on the ground needs support and assistance, but at the same time, without giving the new

10:46authorities what would be a blank check.

10:49So Souheir Battidi, give us a concrete example of sanctions that can be lifted right now.

10:56Concrete examples would be to have decisions on electricity infrastructures that would

11:08give the population in Syria a sense of concrete support.

11:14And when it comes to benchmarks, what could be benchmarked is proof of an inclusive political

11:22process to have appropriate counterterrorism actions from the new authorities against the

11:30Islamic State, but also against al-Qaeda and affiliates.

11:34We could have also a commitment to the destruction of the chemical weapon programs.

11:43The cooperation began with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, but

11:49it's the very beginning.

11:51And new steps, new commitments could give what I talked about, proof, what could be

11:58proof of good faith from this new Syrian authorities.

12:03Ahmad al-Shara, he has got a wide-ranging alliance for now.

12:10He's also got cabinet members who are accused of war crimes for past deeds.

12:15So it's again that question of how much do you put under scrutiny, this new team here,

12:23when you compare it with the previous one.

12:26Exactly.

12:28And that's why maybe there is many talks about transitional justice at how it should not

12:36be the cherry on the cake, but a vital part of what's going on, of the whole conversation,

12:41and also of the reconstruction process in Syria.

12:44I want to thank you so much for being with us, from Washington, Suheir Madini.

12:49Thank you very much.

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