Anxiety, anger, and hope in Syria’s Damascus after SDF ceasefire

Exhausted by war, Damascus longs for unity arsenic ceasefire sparks hope. But questions of integration and stableness remain.

Damascus, Syria – Damascus had breathed a suspiration of alleviation erstwhile a ceasefire betwixt the Syrian authorities and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) was announced connected the nighttime of January 18. Fireworks lit up the sky, car horns blared and Syrians gathered successful Umayyad Square to creation successful jubilation.

The anticipation was that the struggle that flared up successful the past fewer weeks successful bluish Syria was present over, and that the state had resolved 1 of the large issues inactive dividing it successful the twelvemonth since the overthrow of longtime person President Bashar al-Assad.

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“It’s a beauteous feeling, and I americium definite it exists successful each Syrian … we privation for each of Syria to beryllium united,” said 1 Damascus resident, Saria Shammiri.

Yet the solemnisation was short-lived.

Fighting resumed the adjacent greeting arsenic the government’s lightning propulsion forced SDF person Mazloum Abdi to judge little favourable terms: a withdrawal from Raqqa and Deir Az Zor, successful northeastern Syria, further eastbound towards Hasakah, a caller ceasefire, and a four-day ultimatum for the SDF to afloat integrate into authorities structures.

Anger towards the SDF

As the timepiece ticks down connected that deadline, successful Damascus and different areas extracurricular SDF control, vexation towards the Kurdish-led forces has hardened aft 15 years of division.

“The violent SDF doesn’t beryllium to this onshore … they are not Kurdish. They are occupiers,” said Maamoun Ramadan, a 75-year-old Syrian Kurd surviving successful Damascus.

For galore here, the SDF is nary longer seen chiefly arsenic a unit that fought ISIL (ISIS) astatine the tallness of Syria’s war, but arsenic an histrion that entrenched a parallel authorization backed by overseas powers, specified arsenic the United States, keeping ample parts of the state beyond the cardinal government’s reach.

In cafes, taxis and authorities offices, the connection is progressively blunt. The SDF is accused of delaying reunification, monopolising lipid and cultivation resources successful the northeast, and shielding itself down US enactment portion the remainder of the state endured sanctions, illness and war. The renewed warring has reinforced a content among galore Syrians that the standoff could lone ever extremity done unit oregon submission. But, still, galore privation a peaceful resolution.

“Dialogue is the instauration of peace,” said Sheikhmos Ramzi, a butcher, “the solution lies astatine the dialog table. Violence lone brings much violence.”

Anxious wait

There is besides an undercurrent of anxiety. While the imaginable of reunifying territory is popular, fewer successful Damascus are unsighted to the risks. A prolonged confrontation could gully successful determination actors, unsettle fragile borderline areas, oregon reignite communal tensions successful the northeast, wherever Arab tribal communities, Kurds, and others coexist uneasily aft years of shifting alliances.

Some residents privately explicit interest astir what integration volition really mean connected the ground. Will SDF fighters beryllium absorbed into nationalist forces, sidelined, oregon prosecuted? Will section administrations beryllium dismantled overnight? And tin a cardinal state, stretched bladed aft years of warfare and economical crisis, realistically govern and stabilise territory it has not controlled for much than a decade?

For now, however, those questions are mostly drowned retired by a ascendant mood: impatience. The ceasefire was welcomed not arsenic an endpoint, but arsenic a measurement towards what galore present spot arsenic an overdue resolution. The government’s advances are framed arsenic restoring sovereignty, not opening a caller section of conflict.

In Damascus, unity is the connection repeated astir often. But it is simply a unity shaped by exhaustion, resentment and the tendency to yet adjacent 1 of the past unresolved fronts of Syria’s agelong war.