Professor Socrates Noufal offered an assessment of Syria’s reality, its social components, the role of external interventions, and the current regime in Damascus. He said that Syria today did not have a genuine political vision and was instead under the control of what he described as a “violence-driven regime.” He said this regime was based not on managing the political, national, and religious diversity of Syrian society, but on power, exclusion, violence, and killing.
The academic said that the positions of the peoples of Syria had to be separated from the stance of the transitional government in Damascus, adding that the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) government was a direct extension of Turkey’s policy in Syria. He compared this to Hassan Nasrallah, representing Iran’s policy in Lebanon, and said that the vast majority of Syrians had been harmed by Turkey’s interventions, which had produced negative consequences for Syria.
Noufal said that the Turkish state was expanding both politically and militarily inside Syrian territory and was directly responsible for the massacres in Sweida (Suwayda) and the Coastal region (El-Sahil).
He said that the Turkish state had launched an open war against the Kurds in Northern and Eastern Syria, and that this policy did not serve any of Syria’s peoples. He added that the massacres had exposed a serious collapse of security for Syrians, but said this collapse was the natural outcome of the current regime. He said the regime was a takfiri-jihadist system built on the denial of the existence of all components, something that had been clear since the day the constitution was proclaimed.
The military force in Northern and Eastern Syria is a decisive power
Prof. Noufal also spoke about the position of the Kurds and said that they were satisfied with the dialogue they were conducting with Damascus and described this dialogue as a “pragmatic” approach that showed their rejection of a centralist and exclusionary project. He said that the chaos unfolding in Syria would continue because the transitional government was attacking unarmed civilians, but that the existence of an organized military force in Northern and Eastern Syria constituted a decisive factor. Noufal also said that Turkey’s projects in Syria did not serve the countries of the region and were not in line with the proposed regional settlements. He stressed that the problem was not related to the Kurds, but rather to the exclusionary regime in Damascus, because this regime did not allow any political solution to develop.
He said this was rooted in the mentality of a regime that rejected dialogue and negotiations and believed only in oppression. Socrates Noufal said that the massacres and forced displacement in the Coastal regions and in Sweida were a direct result of the regime’s fundamental logic and could not be treated as separate incidents. He stressed that since 2011, Syria had never experienced peace and that this state of instability continued today.
Noufal added that the Turkish state, together with its regional allies and the current regime in Damascus, was investing in this environment of instability as an external actor. He said he could not make definitive predictions about Syria’s future but warned that a return to a centralist and authoritarian system, particularly under a jihadist regime, would be a disaster for Syria.
Noufal said that the USA was not inclined to make a choice between the Kurds in North-Eastern Syria and the government in Damascus. Speaking about the situation in Sweida. Noufal also said: “The people of Sweida generally want autonomy and to be a genuine partner in Syria’s future. They do not want to become a tool in the hands of any individual or any side. A real solution in Syria can only come through recognition of the rights of Syria’s peoples and the abandonment of the idea of assimilation. It is neither possible, nor rational, nor humane for victims and perpetrators to sit at the same negotiating table.”