U.S. Withdrawal Will Help Resolve ‘Idlib Knot,’ Says Former British Ambassador to Syria

FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

U.S. Withdrawal Will Help Resolve ‘Idlib Knot,’ Says Former British Ambassador to Syria

Dec. 30, 2018 (EIRNS )—Peter Ford, the former British ambassador to Syria, told Sputnik in an interview that he thinks, once the U.S. withdrawal is complete, the situation in Idlib will resolve itself within a year. “I think with this latest American move the situation in 80% of Syria will soon be resolved. The final knot, Idlib, will be difficult but with cooperation of the main parties, Turkey, Russia and Iran, I believe it’ll be resolved within a year,” Ford said.

Ford said that, with the arrival of government troops, the situation in Manbij is also well on its way to resolution, where “we will see effectively a return to the status quo, the situation as it obtained in that part of Syria before 2011 when things were quiet, Turkey was happy, relations between Turkey and Syria were excellent. For several years the Syrian government had kept tight control over the Kurds.... We are heading for a return I think to that situation and it looks as though [President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan is adjusting to that probability,” Ford said.

Ford also said that the Kurdish YPG militia should have realized much earlier the gravity of the situation, which they had been ignoring because of

the U.S. military presence in the region, and now their best option was to try and negotiate with Damascus.

“They have been dreaming the U.S. would stay in northern and eastern Syria indefinitely. They should have been much more realistic from the beginning. Now the most they can do is try to salvage some small bit of negotiating maneuver with Damascus, but they are in extremely weak negotiating position,”

he said.

He continued that the next big issues for Syria are rebuilding the country, devastated by war, and preventing the re-emergence of terrorism. “Those are immense challenges, and I greatly fear that the Western countries will not help. Worse than that: They will try to block Syria’s recovery.”