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Macron Does Not Rule out Dialogue with Syria’s Assad

French President Emmanuel Macron. (Reuters)
French President Emmanuel Macron. (Reuters)
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Macron Does Not Rule out Dialogue with Syria’s Assad

French President Emmanuel Macron. (Reuters)
French President Emmanuel Macron. (Reuters)

French President Emmanuel Macron once against revealed his “political pragmatism” when he announced during a recent televised appearance that he does not rule out dialogue with Syrian regime leader Bashar Assad.

Macron said: “Bashar Assad will be present because he is protected by those who won the war, whether Iran or Russia. Therefore, we can’t say that we don’t want to talk to him or his representatives.”

Once again, Macron favors the concept of “political realism” and the role of Paris in this regard.

His statements can be summed up in three points.

First, the end of war on ISIS in Syria is imminent. It should end by mid or late February at the latest. Second, Macron sees that Russia and Iran actually won the war, therefore, Assad is still in his position.

The French president however reiterated the violations committed by the regime and which cannot be ignored. From this, Macron, who considers ISIS France’s enemy while “Assad the enemy of Syrian people”, called for holding Assad accountable for his crimes both before his people and the international justice.

The third matter is the dual message Macron wanted to deliver through his televised interview. When the French president spoke about a specific date for the end of war against ISIS, he wished to draw attention to the French military and the practical role they played.

The second message tackles the role which France seeks to play in the peace process in Syria given its role in the war against ISIS.

The peace process it seeks to launch next year will bring together Assad and opposition representatives, said French sources. The opposition will include figures who left Syria to escape regime persecution, not ISIS, explained Macron.

On Tuesday, Assad declared: “France spearheaded support for terrorism and their hands are soaked in Syrian blood from the first days and we do not see they have changed their stance fundamentally.”

“Those who support terrorism have no right to talk about peace,” he told a Russian delegation.

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Sudan Families Bury Loved Ones Twice as War Reshapes Khartoum

A Red Crescent team exhumes bodies from a mass grave in Khartoum. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
A Red Crescent team exhumes bodies from a mass grave in Khartoum. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Sudan Families Bury Loved Ones Twice as War Reshapes Khartoum

A Red Crescent team exhumes bodies from a mass grave in Khartoum. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
A Red Crescent team exhumes bodies from a mass grave in Khartoum. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Under a punishing mid‑morning sun, Souad Abdallah cradles her infant and stares at a freshly opened pit in al‑Baraka square on the eastern fringe of Sudan’s capital.

Moments earlier the hole had served as the hurried grave of her husband – one of hundreds of people buried in playgrounds, traffic islands and vacant lots during Sudan’s two‑year war.

Seven months ago, Abdallah could not risk the sniper fire and checkpoints that ringed Khartoum’s official cemeteries. Today she is handed her husband’s remains in a numbered white body‑bag so he can receive the dignity of a proper burial.

She is not alone. Families gather at the square, pointing out makeshift graves – “my brother lies here... my mother there” – before forensic teams lift 118 bodies and load them onto flat‑bed trucks known locally as dafaar.

The Sudanese war erupted on 15 April 2023 when the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the army clashed for control of Khartoum, quickly spreading to its suburbs, notably Omdurman. More than 500 civilians died in the first days and thousands more have been killed since, although no official tally exists.

The army recaptured the capital on 20 May 2025, but the harder task, officials say, is re‑burying thousands of bodies scattered in mass graves, streets and public squares.

“For the next 40 days we expect to move about 7,000 bodies from across Khartoum to public cemeteries,” Dr. Hisham Zein al‑Abideen, the city’s chief forensic pathologist, told Asharq Al-Awsat. He said his teams, working with the Sudanese Red Crescent, have already exhumed and re-interred some 3,500 bodies and located more than 40 mass graves.

One newly discovered site at the International University of Africa in southern Khartoum contains about 7,000 RSF fighters spread over a square‑kilometer area, he added.

Abdallah, a mother of three, recalled to Asharq Al-Awsat how a stray bullet pierced her bedroom window and killed her husband. “We buried him at night, without witnesses and without a wake,” she said. “Today I am saying goodbye again this time with honor.”

Nearby, Khadija Zakaria wept as workers unearthed her sister. “She died of natural causes, but we were barred from the cemetery, so we buried her here,” she said. Her niece and brother‑in‑law were laid in other improvised graves and are also awaiting transfer.

Exhumations can be grim. After finishing at al‑Baraka, the team drives to al‑Fayhaa district, where the returning owner of an abandoned house has reported a desiccated corpse in his living room. Neighbors said it is a Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fighter shot by comrades. In another case, a body is pulled from an irrigation canal and taken straight to a cemetery.

Social media rumors that authorities demand hefty fees for re‑burials are untrue, Dr. Zein al‑Abideen stressed. “Transporting the remains is free. It is completely our responsibility,” he added. The forensic crews rotate in two shifts to cope with the fierce heat.

Asked how they cope with the daily horror, one member smiled wanly over a cup of tea, saying: “We are human. We try to find solutions amid the tragedy. If it were up to us, no family would have to mourn twice.”

Khartoum today is burying bodies – and memories. “We are laying our dead to rest and, with them, part of the pain,” Abdallah said as she left the square, her child asleep on her shoulder. “I buried my husband twice, but we have not forgotten him for a single day. Perhaps now he can finally rest in peace.”