SYRIA: Signs that Assad is warming to opponents
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A number of recent reports and events suggest signs of a rapprochement between the Syria’s ruling Baath Party and its biggest political opponent, the Muslim Brotherhood.
A report published recently by Stratfor, a U.S. group that collects and analyzes intelligence from around the world, says that Syrian President Bashar Assad and his party has “a plan in progress to mend ties with” the outlawed Sunni Islamist group.
In a predominantly Sunni Muslim country, the Syrian Baath Party has created an efficient police-run regime, enabling the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, to maintain absolute political control of the country for four decades.
In 1982, the Baathists violently quelled opposition by the Muslim Brotherhood, reportedly killing thousands of people in the Syrian city of Hama. Since then, the political leadership of the Islamist group has been operating mainly from European cities.
But Damascus has its reasons to loosen its grip over Islamist opposition groups, and the Muslim Brotherhood could be jumping at any opportunity to improve its status in Syria.
Last month, the political leadership of the Islamist group issued a statement from London declaring that it would freeze all opposition to the Syrian government temporarily to join efforts against Israel.
Later in January, the Turkish media reported that a delegation from the Muslim Brotherhood visited Turkey to ask for the Ankara’s government’s mediation between the outlawed group and the Syrian government.
Members of the delegation told the English-language Turkish news website, World Bulletin, that the Muslim Brotherhood expected the Syrian government to “acknowledge democratic, legal and human rights, to grant permission for all exiles to return home.”
They added that they did not set preconditions to start talks with Syria.
The Stratfor report says that during the Israeli offensive on Gaza in January, Syria bolstered its image as a hard-line regional power supporting militancy against Israel.
At the same time, Syrians signaled to the West and Israel that any effort to curb Palestinian militants has to pass through Damascus, which hosts the exiled political leadership of Hamas, the Palestinian group that battled Israelis in Gaza.
Syria and Israel announced last year that they were holding indirect peace negotiations mediated by the Turks. But as a consequence of Israel’s attack on Gaza, Damascus decided to suspend the talks.
The Stratfor report concludes that one way for the Syrians to protect their “radical image” at home while seeking to resume peace talks with the Jewish state is by advancing ongoing negotiations with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood:
“Negotiations over allowing the Syrian MB a legal and possibly political presence in the country are still in progress, but if the Syrian regime can demonstrate that it has the support of the Syrian MB, it will have more legitimacy to pursue a peace agreement with Israel without having to worry overmuch about risking its stability.”
The report says the Assad clan has deep-seated fears about a growing Sunni Islamist opposition:
“The Syrian regime, according to Stratfor sources in Syria, has recently engaged in private negotiations with the Syrian MB. The Syrian regime has long kept a channel open with the group to keep an eye on its activities, but the negotiations now appear to have reached a more critical stage and are focused more on following the Jordanian model of working with the more moderate elements of the MB as a way of containing the Islamist populace.”
Jordanian and Egyptian branches of the Muslim brotherhood have large popular support in the two countries, where they enjoy more freedom than in Syria.
-- Raed Rafei in Beirut
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