PARIS: French President Emm­anuel Macron on Thursday urged Syria’s new leaders to ensure “governance that is representative and respectful of all” at a Paris conference on the transition in the war-torn country after Bashar al-Assad’s fall.

“The hope you carry on your shoulders is immense,” he said at the international meeting attended by Syria’s Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani.

Islamist-led rebels toppled Assad in December after a lightning offensive. The new authorities, headed by interim leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, have sought to reassure the international community that they have broken with their past and will respect the rights of minorities.

They have been lobbying the West to ease sanctions imposed against Assad to allow the country to rebuild its economy after five decades of his family’s rule and almost 14 years of civil war. “This capacity to respect all communities... is key. Because it will be the condition of stability” that will allow refugees to return to the country, Macron said.

Syria’s war has killed more than half a million people and displaced millions from their homes inside the country and abroad. Macron said he would “soon” be hosting Sharaa in Paris, but did not give a specific date.

Fight against IS ‘priority’

Syria’s war evolved into a complex conflict after it started in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests. Militant Islamic State group fighters seized large swathes of the country and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, declaring a so-called cross-border “caliphate” there.

But Kurdish-led Syrian fighters, backed by the air power of a US-led coalition dubbed “Inherent Resolve” that includes France, defeated that proto-state in 2019. Some IS cells however still operate in Syria’s vast desert. Macron urged the new Damascus authorities to join in the fight against IS, saying it was “an absolute priority”.

France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot earlier said the European Union was working toward swiftly easing Syria sanctions. “We are working with my European counterparts towards a rapid lifting of sectorial economic sanctions,” Barrot said, after EU foreign ministers agreed last month to ease them, starting with key sectors such as energy.

Conference attendees — including the United States, Germany, Britain, the European Union and the United Nations — wanted to see emerge “a free, sovereign, unified and stable Syria”, the foreign minister said. Barrot also called for “a global ceasefire in all Syrian territory, including the north and northeast”.

Turkish-backed factions launched attacks against Kurdish-held areas in northern Syria at around the same time as the offensive that overthrew Assad, and have since seized strategic areas there.

There has been concern among Western governments over the direction the new Syrian leadership will take, in particular on religious freedom, women’s rights and the status of the Kurdish minority in the northeast of Syria.

Published in Dawn, February 14th, 2025