Arab Analyst Underlines Big Evolvement in Syria after 7 Years

Rasa - Abdel Bari Atwan, the editor-in-chief of Rai al-Youm newspaper, stressed that the crisis of relations between Saudi Arabia and Qatar caused big developments in the Syrian issue and the country is now moving towards formation of a new state and taking lessons from the past experiences.

News ID: 431093

Date: 19 July 2017 - 23:51

RNA - "No analyst expected 6 months ago that the countries' position on the Syrian issue change so dramatically and even President Bashar al-Assad didn’t predict that one day the Qatari government would resort to taking assistance from Iran to support it against the Saudi and UAE neighbors," Atwan wrote on Wednesday.

Referring to the pains and plagues happening for the Syrian government and nation in the past 6 years, he said the Syrians have now taken many lessons from the past which can help the formation of a new Syria.

"The new Syria will know its foes and friends well and will revive its leading role in the region and the world," Atwan added.

"The attempts by Qatar and Saudi Arabia to overthrow the Syrian government failed and the US, Turkey and the West's huge financial aid to the Syrian dissidents and dispatch of arms to them finally backfired on them and ignited the fire of differences and political and ethnic tensions among them," he underscored.

In relevant remarks earlier this month, Atwan said the developments in the Middle-East have increased the possibility of the formation of new coalitions among Iran, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Russia and even Qatar.

Atwan underlined that exacerbated crisis between the Arab states and Qatar and the decreasing possibility for an agreement to end the current tensions in addition to Ankara's direct interference and dispatch of military forces to Doha all can leave a positive impact on the crisis, specially after ISIL's recent defeats in Mosul and Raqqa.

He added that the relevant sides to the crisis in Syria have focused attention on Qatar and the crisis in its relations with certain Arab states, specially Saudi Arabia. "Turkey and Iran are standing on the side of Qatar. Tehran has sufficed to opening its airspace and ports to the Qatari planes and ships, but Ankara has gone further and sent military forces and tanks to the tiny Persian Gulf Arab country".

Atwan said Turkey is now after a peaceful settlement of the crisis in Syria after realizing that a military solution is impossible and after the US growing support for the Kurds and it has understood that confronting this threat is not possible without allying with Syria, Iraq and Iran in case it loses the US and Saudi support.

Noting that Russian President Vladimir Putin acts like a gate for Erdogan to enter the Iran-Iraq-Syria coalition, and that Qatar may also join this coalition at a later stage, he said that now the interests of Erdogan and Bashar al-Assad have overlapped under the influence of the crisis in Qatar and therefore, there is a possibility for their rapprochement after 7 years of differences.

Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt cut off diplomatic ties with Qatar early June, and suspended air and sea communication one week after the Arab Islamic American Summit in Riyadh, accusing Doha of supporting terrorist organizations and destabilizing the situation in the Middle East.

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