Syria de facto leader al-Sharaa meets Christian clerics

Meeting comes arsenic caller authorities question to reassure minorities of their information successful post-Assad Syria.

Syria’s de facto person Ahmed al-Sharaa met elder Christian clerics connected Tuesday, amid calls for the caput of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) to warrant number rights aft seizing powerfulness earlier this month.

“The person of the caller Syrian administration, Ahmed al-Sharaa, meets a delegation from the Christian assemblage successful Damascus,” Syria’s General Command said successful a connection connected Telegram.

The connection included pictures of the gathering with Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican clerics.

Earlier Tuesday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot called for an inclusive governmental modulation successful Syria that guarantees the rights of the country’s divers communities.

He expressed anticipation that “Syrians could instrumentality backmost power of their own destiny“.

But for this to happen, the state needs “a governmental modulation successful Syria that includes each communities successful their diversity, that upholds the astir basal rights and cardinal freedoms,” Barrot said during a sojourn to Lebanon with Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu.

Barrot and Lecornu besides met Lebanon’s service main Joseph Aoun and visited United Nations peacekeepers patrolling the confederate border, wherever a fragile truce ended aggravated warring betwixt Israel and Hezbollah successful precocious November.

‘Positive’ talks with SDF

Since seizing power, Syria’s caller leadership, headed by al-Sharaa, who was antecedently a subordinate of al-Qaeda, has repeatedly tried to reassure minorities that they volition not beryllium harmed, though immoderate isolated incidents person sparked protests.

On December 25, thousands protested successful respective areas of Syria aft a video circulated showing an onslaught connected an Alawite shrine successful the country’s north.

A time earlier, hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets successful Christian areas of Damascus to protestation against the burning of a Christmas histrion adjacent Hama successful cardinal Syria.

Before the civilian warfare erupted successful 2011, Syria was location to astir 1 cardinal Christians, according to expert Fabrice Balanche, who says their fig has dwindled to astir 300,000.

Earlier, a Syrian authoritative told the AFP quality bureau that al-Sharaa held “positive” talks with delegates of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) connected Monday.

The talks were al-Sharaa’s archetypal with SDF commanders since his rebels overthrew longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad successful aboriginal December and travel arsenic the SDF is locked successful warring with Turkish-backed factions successful bluish Syria.

The United States-backed SDF spearheaded the subject run that pushed ISIL (ISIS) fighters from their past territory successful Syria successful 2019.

But Turkiye, which has agelong had ties with al-Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, says that the SDF is led by members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a four-decade rebellion against the Turkish state, and is branded a “terrorist” radical successful Turkiye and the US.

On Sunday, al-Sharaa told Al Arabiya tv that the SDF should beryllium integrated into the caller nationalist army.

“Weapons indispensable beryllium successful the hands of the authorities alone. Whoever is equipped and qualified to articulation the defence ministry, we volition invited them,” he said.