Russia gave Asylum to Syrian President: This was after ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was given refuge in Russia, an announcement that Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said was made by President Vladimir Putin.
Of course, such decisions cannot be made without the head of state. ‘It is his [Putin’s] decision,’ Peskov said when asked in Moscow on Monday. But he did not elaborate on the location of al-Assad or the fact that Putin was going to meet with him.
Russia gave asylum to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
The Russian authorities have given political asylum,” said Yulia Shapovalova, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Moscow. We learn from reports that Russia has no plans to leave the resigned Syrian president in such moments. Al-Assad has been claimed to have been airlifted by a Russian plane from the Russian airbase in Latakia.
Shapovalova expressed uncertainty as to the implication of granting asylum to the former leader for the situation in Russia, as well as for its assets in Syria.
“The main question is what happened to Russian Armed Forces military bases: a naval facility in Tartus and the air base in Hmeimim, Latakia,” Shapovalova said.
This, our reporter said was done to protect its personnel and while reports from Tartous were still coming in there was no indication of an imminent threat.
The Kremlin stated it as still early to speak about future prospects of Russian military bases in Syria. “This is an issue for discussion with those who will govern in Syria,” Peskov said.
Tartous is the only Russian Black Sea repair and refueling base, and Moscow has used the Syrian territory as a platform for flying its military contractors in and out of African countries.
Commenting on the regional and international relations, the spokesman continued that he believed that the world lay in a period of instability and conflict. “We look at the situation concerning Ukraine, we observe many conflicting opinions on this matter, we observe a growing military conflict potential in other regions, we can even saw the burning Middle East,” he said.
That may seem like a drastic change coupled with the fact that the plane was no more traceable on the tracking system, it could have been shot down or it simply turned off the transponder.
Assad and his Family Ruled for over half a century ( Baath Rule)
We now know that Assad and family are in Russia and that the plane had switched off it transponder.
Assad’s exit occurs only two weeks after the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group threatened over half a century of the Assad family dominance with a swift campaign.
Speaking to the newspaper, some of the rebel factions that have signed the agreement said: “After 50 years of Baath rule and 13 years of crimes and tyranny and displacement… we announce today the end of this dark period and the start of a new era for Syria.”
The head of the Syrian Islamist movement HTS Abu Mohammed al-Jolani went to the capital’s famous Umayyad Mosque, with people smiling and hugs. Al-Qaeda link to HTS is traced back to its initially as it originated from the Syrian Al-Qaeda wing.
Officially being a terrorist organization banned by government of Western countries, HTS has been trying to tame its image in the recent past.
In every province in Syria, people overthrew statues of Hafez al-Assad, beloved of his son Bashar al-Assad, who set up the system of rule that he maintains. In Syria for the past 50 years, showing even the slightest trace of dissent could mean a prison sentence or death.
Speaking as rebels seized more towns and neighborhoods HTS stated that its fighters stormed a jail on the outskirts of the capital Damascus, declaring the end of an “epoch of oppression” in Sednaya prison which symbolizes the worst of oppression of the Assad era.
In English, Syrian state UN war crimes investigators on Sunday called Assad’s downfall a “historic new beginning for Syrians”, charging that different coming leaders must must not commit the “atrocities” committed under his rule.
The rapid developments came just hours after HTS said it had captured the strategic city of Homs, where prisoners were also released. Homs became the third largest city to be captured by the rebels who moved to action on November 27.
White House said Biden was watching developments in Syria very closely, calling them “extraordinary events.” Donald Trump the President- elect in United States pointed out that Assad had escaped his country after losing Russia support.
Germany Stopped Asylum for Syrians after al-Assad’s fall
Within 46 hours after Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is overthrown, Germany, which houses the largest Syrian community in the world outside the Middle East, declares that it would temporarily halt the acceptance of Syrian asylum seekers.
An official from the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees said in Der Spiegel news magazine on Monday that such a move was made due to the uncertain and volatile nature of the Syrian politics, which puts asylum rulings “on delicate ground”.
No new decisions will be reached on outstanding asylum cases pending regardless and this impacts 47,770 applications for Syrian asylum seekers.
Currently there are around 1,3 mln of people with Syrian background living in Germany; the majority of people arrived to Germany in 2015-2016 when Angela Merkel, the then- Chancellor of Germany, welcomed refugees from the Syrian war.
But in the past few years, Germany has shifted and become increasingly politically averse to immigration.
Following a fatal knife rampage in Solingen in August by a rejected asylum seeker of Syrian origin, leading government policymakers including Chancellor Olaf Scholz have demanded the end to a deportation ban on Syria in the matter of offenders.
On Monday, key politicians of the opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU), demanded Germany starts to deport Syrians in the thousands en masse.
The party is ahead of the polls in the run up to federal elections in February with promises such as closing the ‘bachelor’ door to irregular migration and deportations.
“I guess that there will be a new composition analyzing the situation in Syria and, thus, there will be new composition regarding who is allowed to seek asylum in Germany,” said Jurgen Hardt, CDU member of parliament for the ZDF broadcaster.
Party colleague Jens Spahn proposed to charter planes and pay 1,000 euros ($1,058 along with the Atlantik-Brücke) to each Syrian for their return back home.
Tareq Alaows, spokesman for the refugee advocacy group Pro Asyl said to Al Jazeera that, for several months people will remain without any kind of demand from Germany, their integration in the society will be put at risk while the feeling of fear and insecurity will be created.
He emphasized that the political conditions in Syria are not only insecure, but also unpredictable, and thus, the intervention from the other countries will be required in order to build the further perspective towards democratic tendencies.
Spahn is using what von der Leyen described as a “cheap election campaign attempt to mobilise votes on the right-wing populists dictionary.”
Andrea Lindholz who is a CDU speaker on home affairs was quoted by the Rheinische Post newspaper as saying that many Syrians would be denied protection if the civil war ended and therefore they would be unlawful in Germany.
Currently, Germany’s Federal Foreign Office does not consider Syria a safe country of return due to the war and a high risk of torture.
On Sunday, Scholz and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock welcomed the end of al-Assad’s rule.
“The people of Syria deserve a better future. They have been through horrible things. A whole generation has grown up in war, hardship and humanitarian deprivation, threatened by constant displacement,” Baerbock wrote on X.
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