Syria

A new ceasefire in Syria has been brokered jointly by the US and Russia.Unfortunately, this is unlikely to bring any lasting peace. Initially set to hold for 48 hours from the evening of Monday 12 September, it may be extended. The terms are based on ngotiations at an international conference in February.The current agreement has been cautiously welcomed by sections of Syrian rebels, but they are highly critical of the lack of monitoring or safeguards. Many groups, including the Free Syrian Army (FSA) alliance, Ahrar al-Sham, and Jaish al-Islam have called the deal “unjust”, but stopped short...

After a period of rebel advance, the Syrian military and its loyal militias have brought areas of eastern Aleppo back under government control. Rebel districts are again under siege. Meanwhile the US and Russia have failed to negotiate any meaningful ceasefire and both sides continue to back opposing forces in the civil war. Barack Obama has again stated that the US has “grave differences with the Russians in terms of both the parties we support but also the process that is required to bring about peace in Syria.” Whilst any deal is meant to coordinate military operations against both Dareh al...

Chemical weapons have been used by both Daesh and (on a much bigger scale) the Assad government in the Syrian civil war. The verdict is from a final report by the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) of the United Nations and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. The Syrian government promised in 2013 to give up its chemical weapons under a deal negotiated by the Russian government, but has continued to use them. The committee recorded four uses of VX nerve gas, 13 uses of sarin, 12 of mustard gas, 41 of chlorine and 61 of other chemical agents, and named Daesh as having...

Below are some articles discussing Corbyn's politics in connection with the Middle East, particularly Iran, and more generally. Corbyn and the Middle East: the hypocrisy of the right, a challenge for the left (by Sacha Ismail, July 2015) For Corbyn, and better politics (by Colin Foster, July 2015) James Bloodworth is wrong about Jeremy Corbyn (by Sacha Ismail, August 2015) I'm backing Jeremy Corbyn, despite his unsavoury “friends” (by Peter Tatchell, September 2015) Open letter to Jeremy Corbyn on repression in Iran (from the Iranian Revolutionary Marxist Tendency, July 2016) Corbyn: their...

Aleppo continues to be worn down by Russian airstrikes and Daesh has attempted to take areas near the Turkish border. Instability in Syria increasingly means aid routes being cut off and medical facilities evacuated and understaffed. Daesh hopes to expand their territory near the Turkish borber, where up to 100,000 civilians are trapped. They are targeting these areas after coming under sustained pressure in both the Iraqi city of Fallujah and their de facto capital Raqqa. Whilst seriously weakened in Fallujah, having possibly just 700 fighters, the group is now trying to gain territory from...

On 4 May, the Tory government backed down and said it would after all admit some lone child refugees from Syria. On 25 April the Tories had voted down proposals in Parliament to admit 3,000 children, but by 4 May they had to retreat. They are still evasive. They won't say how many. None will be admitted until the end of 2016, and none that hadn't been registered in other EU countries before 20 March this year. The government suggests it will supply funds to councils to help settle the refugees, but won't be specific. It was another victory against the migrant-haters on 5 May when Labour's...

In an interview with the Observer (1 May), Brita Haji Hasan, the head of the Aleppo City Council, highlighted the dramatic decline in the Syrian city’s population. He said, “In 2013 there were two million people in and around the city… there are 400,000 right now.” The semi-siege like conditions that Aleppo is now under expose the sham of the so called “ceasefire” that was negotiated with the supposed support of all sides — US, Russia and Assad. The Geneva discussions which “achieved” the cessation of hostilities have brought little benefit to Aleppo. UN envoy Staffan de Mistura has said that...

Here’s what the “Fortress EU” of ever increasing land, air and sea fences and more actual and conceptual borders says to us all, and not only to the refugees of Syria’s war: There is no place for you to live, because I want to grab your resources and check your routes. There is no other place for you to go to breathe. There is no way to walk. The only option to endure, to endure, to adapt, to live with the annihilation of any planning for a better future. And, to a large extent, those messages represent the broader social, economic, and cultural values of today’s capitalism. If Europe greeted...

Michael Karadjis of the Australian Socialist Alliance has written a long and informative analysis of what he reckons to have been a U-turn by the Kurdish nationalist movement in Syria, the PYD, under the title " The Kurdish PYD’s alliance with Russia against Free Aleppo: Evidence and analysis of a disaster " . He criticises PYD clashes with other rebel groups in Syria, and the PYD's project of a reunification of Rojava (the Kurdish-claimed area of northern Syria) against the wishes of Arabs and Turkmen and other minorities within its declared borders. Several reports indicate that the PYD, and...

Aso Kamal, a member of the Worker-communist Party of Kurdistan, spoke to Solidarity . This is the second part of the interview. We published the first last week. There is no stability in the Middle East. Kurdistan stretches across different countries — Turkey, Iraq, Syria. There is conflict between the big powers: Russia and US. In the region there are two poles: on the one hand, Iran and Assad, and on the other, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Political parties and powers are divided between those two poles in the region. Erdogan sees the local administration of the Kurdish people in Syria as a...