Syria’s Interim FM Says Russia-Iran Ties to Assad Are an Open Wound After War 

Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani talks to Kuwaiti journalist Ammar Taqi during the World Governments Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025. (AP)
Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani talks to Kuwaiti journalist Ammar Taqi during the World Governments Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025. (AP)
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Syria’s Interim FM Says Russia-Iran Ties to Assad Are an Open Wound After War 

Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani talks to Kuwaiti journalist Ammar Taqi during the World Governments Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025. (AP)
Syria's interim Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani talks to Kuwaiti journalist Ammar Taqi during the World Governments Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025. (AP)

Syria's relations with Iran and Russia remain an open wound for its people after those nations backed autocratic President Bashar Assad during the long civil war, the country's new, interim foreign minister said Wednesday.

Speaking at the World Governments Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Asaad al-Shibani acknowledged some “positive” signs from both Moscow and Tehran but did not elaborate.

However, he underlined the new government in Damascus' desire to improve relations with the West and get sanctions on Syria lifted so the country could start rebuilding after the ruinous, 14-year war.

“Syria has recovered its freedom and dignity” after decades of despotism, al-Shibani said. “It's a new period of peace and peace building.”

Among key concerns for al-Shibani are the US and European Union sanctions. Estimates suggest it will cost at least $250 billion rebuild Syria, which has a poverty rate of 90% and a gross domestic product of less than half it was before the war, according to the European Union.

The sanctions were imposed on “the Syrian regime as result of its oppressions,” al-Shibani said. “It’s only natural to lift” them now.

Al-Shibani also claimed Wednesday that the interim government had “ended all security and Captagon-related challenges” that strained ties with neighboring Jordan. Captagon, an amphetamine-like stimulant, had been a main source of revenue for Assad.

But tensions remain with Russia and Iran.

Moscow hopes to maintain its air and sea base in Syria on the Mediterranean Sea. Iran also has used Syria as a transit point to arm Lebanon's Hezbollah party and others in its self-described “Axis of Resistance” against Israel and the United States.

“Syrian people have wounds and pain that they suffered at the hands of these two countries,” al-Shibani said of Russia and Iran.

“In order to restore the relationship, the Syrian people must feel comfortable with this relationship,” he added.



Sudan’s Humanitarian Crisis Worsens amid Escalating Violence

FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)
FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)
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Sudan’s Humanitarian Crisis Worsens amid Escalating Violence

FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)
FILE - People prepare local crops of sugar cane and watermelons for sale, at Abu Shouk refugee camp, where they live on the outskirts of El Fasher, North Darfur, Sudan, Oct. 8, 2010. (AP Photo/John Heilprin, File)

Fighting in Sudan's Kordofan region that has killed hundreds and ongoing violence in Darfur — the epicenters of the country's conflict — have worsened Sudan's humanitarian crisis, with aid workers warning of limited access to assistance.

The United Nations said more than 450 civilians, including at least 35 children, were killed during the weekend of July 12 in attacks in villages surrounding the town of Bara in North Kordofan province.

“The suffering in Kordofan deepens with each passing day,” Mercy Corps Country Director for Sudan Kadry Furany said in a statement shared with The Associated Press. “Communities are trapped along active and fast changing front lines, unable to flee, unable to access basic needs or lifesaving assistance.”

Sudan plunged into war after simmering tensions between the army and its rival, the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, escalated to fighting in April 2023. The violence has killed at least 40,000 people and created one of the world’s worst displacement and hunger crises, according to humanitarian organizations. In recent months, much of the fighting has been concentrated in the Darfur and Kordofan regions.

On Thursday, the UN human rights office confirmed that since July 10, the RSF has killed at least 60 civilians in the town of Bara, while civil society groups reported up to 300 people were killed, the office said.

A military airstrike on Thursday in Bara killed at least 11 people, all from the same family, according to the UN office. Meanwhile, between July 10 and 14, the army killed at least 23 civilians and injured over two dozen others after striking two villages in West Kordofan.

An aid worker with Mercy Corps said his brother was fatally shot on July 13 during an attack on the village of Um Seimima in El Obeid City in North Kordofan, Grace Wairima Ndungu, the group’s communications manager told AP.

Furany said that movement between the western and eastern areas of the Kordofan region is “practically impossible.”

The intensified fighting forced Mercy Corps to temporarily suspend operations in three out of four localities, with access beyond Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan, now being in “serious doubt,” Furany said, as a safe sustained humanitarian corridor is needed.

Mathilde Vu, an aid worker with the Norwegian Refugee Council who is often based in Port Sudan, told the AP that fighting has intensified in North Kordofan and West Kordofan over the past several months.

“A large number of villages are being destroyed, burned to the ground, people being displaced,” she said. “What is extremely worrying about the Kordofan is that there is very little information and not a lot of organizations are able to support. It is a complete war zone there.”

Marwan Taher, head of mission with humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders, told the AP that military operations in Kordofan heightened insecurity, prompting scores of people to flee to Darfur, a region already in a dire humanitarian situation.

The NRC said that since April, Tawila has already received 379,000 people escaping violence in famine-hit Zamzam Camp and Al Fasher.

Meanwhile, the International Organization for Migration recently reported that over 46,000 people were displaced from different areas in West Kordofan in May alone due to clashes between warring parties.

Taher said those fleeing El Fasher to Tawila walk long distances with barely enough clothes and little water, and sleep on the streets until they arrive at the area they want to settle in. The new wave of displacement has brought diseases, including measles, which began spreading in parts of Zalingi in Central Darfur in March and April as camps received people fleeing Kordofan.

Aid workers also warned about ongoing fighting in Darfur. Vu said there have been “uninterrupted campaigns of destruction” against civilians in North Darfur.
“In Darfur there’s been explicit targeting of civilians. There’s been explicit execution,” she said.

Shelling killed five children Wednesday in El Fasher in North Darfur, according to UN spokesperson Stephanie Tremblay. Meanwhile, between July 14 and 15, heavy rains and flooding displaced over 400 people and destroyed dozens of homes in Dar As Salam, North Darfur.

With a looming rainy season, a cholera outbreak and food insecurity, the situation in Darfur is “getting worse every day and that’s what war is,” said Taher.