Yahya Al-Aridi: Russia’s request to open crossings in Idlib is an indication of the Assad regime’s economic weakness
On Wednesday, Russia announced that it had reached an agreement with Turkey to open crossings between the Assad regime-controlled areas and the opposition areas in the liberated north of Syria, without an official comment from the Turkish side in this regard.
In an exclusive interview with Fresh Online, the spokesman for the negotiating committee, Yahya Al-Aridi, said, “Russia has recently continued to use its right of veto to prevent the entry of humanitarian aid into Syria, but its request to open crossings in Idlib indicates that the Assad regime is going through a bad economic and political situation.
Al-Aridi added: “Opening the crossings if it is in the interest of the Syrian people and to bring humanitarian aid to them is welcome. But if it is to save the Assad regime, this matter is considered participation in its crimes.
He stressed that Russia will not allow the safe or voluntary return of the displaced in northern Syria, noting that “Russia is still bombing vital installations and residential areas so far.”
Al-Aridi called for a safe and neutral environment that protects the lives of the Syrians, but Russia prevents that, “which gives us an indication that it is using an acrobatic (contradictory) policy in Syria.”
For his part, a member of Fresh’s National Coalition, Abdul Majid Barakat, affirmed that “Russia seeks to ease the burden of the Assad regime at the economic level, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made several international tours in this context.”
Barakat explained that Russia bombed many areas in the liberated north of Syria, to put pressure on the regional countries that control the humanitarian outlets that the Assad regime could benefit from, in light of its economic suffering from which it suffers.
Regarding the Russian-Turkish understandings in this regard, Barkat noted, “These understandings do not come within the framework of these policies that Russia is trying to advance with steps with regional countries so that the political process does not have any real and tangible progress.
He pointed out that these crossings do not have a positive response to the Syrian people in northern Syria, and are rejected by the international community as a whole, as they lead somewhat to alleviate the economic suffering of the Assad regime.
The member of the National Coalition stressed that these crossings are not a cause of violations of the sanctions imposed on the Assad regime and do not lead to chaos at the security level in northern Syria.
Meanwhile, the spokesman for the National Army, Youssef Hammoud, denounced the opening of crossings in Idlib, saying: “There are no positive points for these crossings, such as high food prices, and the Assad regime will not benefit to the greatest degree, as everyone knows it has many crossings with other countries.”
Hammoud emphasized that the Assad regime’s crisis is not a crisis of crossings, but rather a crisis of a complete system, headed by Bashar al-Assad, whose mission is to starve the Syrian people and increase their suffering, noting that “Russia is interested in such crossings, to push the political direction, after it failed militarily in most of the Syrian opposition areas.”
It is noteworthy that the Russian Ministry of Defense suggested that Turkey open the three crossings in the Idlib region, describing these crossings as a front “to alleviate the human suffering of the Syrians.”
