DAMASCUS (Reuters) -Syria’s new interim prime minister said he aimed to bring back millions of Syrian refugees, protect all citizens and provide basic services, but rebuilding would be difficult because the country lacked foreign currency.
“In the coffers there are only Syrian pounds worth little or nothing. One U.S. dollar buys 35,000 of our coins,” Mohammed al-Bashir told Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera.
“We have no foreign currency and as for loans and bonds we are still collecting data. So yes, financially we are very bad,” said Bashir, who ran a rebel-led administration in a pocket of northwestern Syria before the lightning offensive swept into Damascus and toppled President Bashar al-Assad.
The new administration is trying to win funds to rebuild Syria, a colossal task following a civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people. Cities have been bombed to ruins, swathes of countryside depopulated and the economy gutted by international sanctions. Millions of refugees still live in camps after one of the biggest displacements of modern times.
U.S. officials are warily engaging with the former rebels, although they are led by Syria’s former al Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
The new government must “uphold clear commitments to fully respect the rights of minorities, facilitate the flow of humanitarian assistance to all in need, prevent Syria from being used as a base for terrorism or posing a threat to its neighbours,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
HTS has lately downplayed its jihadist roots but remains designated as a terrorist organisation by the United Nations, United States, EU, Turkey and others.
Countries hope the new authorities’ behaviour will make it possible to ease wartime sanctions imposed on Damascus under Assad, as well as terrorism bans imposed on the rebels who toppled him.
Two senior U.S. congressmen, a Republican and a Democrat, wrote a letter calling for Washington to suspend some sanctions on Syria. The most punishing war-time U.S. sanctions are up for renewal this month, and the former rebels have told Reuters they are in touch with Washington about potentially easing them.
The new government has told business leaders it will adopt a free-market model and integrate the country into the global financial system after decades of state control, the head of the Damascus Chambers of Commerce, Bassel Hamwi, told Reuters.
‘WALK TOGETHER IN FRIENDSHIP’
The world will be watching closely to see whether Syria’s new rulers can avert revenge attacks following a brutal civil war fought on sectarian and ethnic lines.
In his first brief address on state TV, new interim prime minister Bashir appeared in front of two flags: the green, black and white flag flown by opponents of Assad throughout the civil war alongside a white flag with the Islamic oath of faith in black writing, typically flown by Sunni Islamist fighters.
A resident of Assad’s family hometown of Qardaha in the coastal stronghold of Assad’s Alawite minority sect said Sunni Islamist fighters had torched and destroyed the mausoleum of Assad’s father Hafez over the past two days, instilling fear among villagers who had pledged cooperation with the new rulers.
The pope, in his first public remarks about Syria since the end of al-Assad’s rule, called on the country’s diverse religious groups to “walk together in friendship and mutual respect for the good of the nation”. Several ancient Catholic rites are among Syria’s many minority sects.
Russia warned about the prospect of a return of Islamic State, the jihadist group that established a violent mini-state in swathes of Syria and Iraq from 2014-2017.
For refugees, the prospect of returning home has brought a mixture of joy and grief over hardship in exile.
Ala Jabeer cried as he prepared to cross from Turkey into Syria with his 10-year-old daughter on Tuesday, 13 years after the war forced him to flee his home. His wife and three of his children were killed in exile by devastating earthquakes that struck the region last year.
“God willing, things will be better than under Assad’s government. We’ve already seen that his oppression is over,” he said.
U.S. CAUTION
U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer told Reuters Washington was still working out how it will engage with the rebel groups. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller declined to say whether Washington would lift HTS’s terrorist designation.
“We have seen over the years any number of militant groups who have seized power, who have promised that they would respect minorities, who have promised that they would respect religious freedom, promised that they would govern in an inclusive way, and then see them fail to meet those promises,” he said.
The rebels’ victory was a blow for Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” alliance of armed groups, which also includes Lebanon’s Hezbollah, groups in Iraq, Yemen’s Houthis and Hamas.
In a speech reported by state media, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei struck a defiant tone: “The more pressure you exert, the stronger the resistance becomes. The more crimes you commit, the more determined it becomes. The more you fight against it, the more it expands,” Khamenei said.
Assad’s enemy Israel moved tanks across the border and launched airstrikes to destroy the hardware of Syria’s defunct army to prevent weapons falling into hostile hands.
The Israeli military said it had struck most of Syria’s strategic weapons stockpiles in the past 48 hours. Defence Minister Israel Katz said it aims to impose a “sterile defence zone” in southern Syria that would be enforced without a permanent troop presence.
Israel acknowledged on Tuesday that its troops had taken up some positions in Syria beyond a demilitarised zone established following the 1973 Middle East war.
(Reporting by Maya Gebeily and Timour Azhari in Damascus; Suleiman al-Khalidi and Firas Makdesi in Amman; Cristina Carlevaro in Rome; Ece Toksabay and Mert Ozkan in Yayladagi, Turkey; David Brunnstrom, Erin Banco and Simon Lewis in Washington; Writing by Lincoln Feast and Michael Georgy; Editing by Michael Perry and Peter Graff)
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