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The arrival of the first Russian diplomat in Damascus since the fall of Bashar al-Assad is launching negotiations on Moscow in Syria.
By Paul Sonne and Christina Goldbaum
Paul Sonne reported from Berlin, and Christina Goldbaum from Damascus.
The time had come to bend the knee — or at least bend to reality.
A delegation of Russian diplomats arrived Tuesday in a white SUV convoy for a summit in Damascus and a not-so-unfeasible task: dropping the Bas al-Assad.
To do so, the delegation would need to win over a people the Russian military had bombed ruthlessly, helping Mr. al-Assad, for years.
Awaiting them was Ahmed al-Shara, who had survived a decade of Russian airstrikes to emerge as Syria’s new interim leader. He stood in the presidential palace and faced the Kremlin’s envoys for a long-awaited reckoning.
The conversations that followed, the first between Moscow and Damascus since the end of the war of almost 14 years, are resolved. But they represented the beginning of potentially written negotiations on the role, if necessary, Russia will play in Syria of the postwar period, after having lost its candidacy to maintain Mr. Al-Assad in power.
The meeting demonstrated the kind of geopolitical horse-trading that has begun in the aftermath of Syria’s civil war — with the potential to remake the Middle East. World powers are jockeying for influence, as Syria’s fledgling leadership tries to win legitimacy, security and aid through disciplined and stony-eyed realpolitik.
“I think that the general air in Damascus is:” Syrians we want to fight with anyone at this stage, adding our former enemies, “said Charles Lister, principal researcher at the Middle East Institute in Washington. ” Dishevelation and degradation and pragmatism are the names of the game. “
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