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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.