Russia Presents Roadmap to Mediate Between Damascus, Kurdish Administration

 Russian military police take part in a joint Turkish-Russian army patrol near the town of Darbasiyah in Syria's northeastern Hasakeh province, along the Syria-Turkey border, November 11, 2019. (Delil Souleiman/AFP)
Russian military police take part in a joint Turkish-Russian army patrol near the town of Darbasiyah in Syria's northeastern Hasakeh province, along the Syria-Turkey border, November 11, 2019. (Delil Souleiman/AFP)
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Russia Presents Roadmap to Mediate Between Damascus, Kurdish Administration

 Russian military police take part in a joint Turkish-Russian army patrol near the town of Darbasiyah in Syria's northeastern Hasakeh province, along the Syria-Turkey border, November 11, 2019. (Delil Souleiman/AFP)
Russian military police take part in a joint Turkish-Russian army patrol near the town of Darbasiyah in Syria's northeastern Hasakeh province, along the Syria-Turkey border, November 11, 2019. (Delil Souleiman/AFP)

A Russian military delegation held extensive meetings with Kurdish leaderships and leading figures in Qamishli, east Syria, at the end of 2019 to discuss the fate of ongoing negotiations between the Kurdish self-administration and Damascus.

Sources revealed that the delegation carried a 10-point roadmap stipulating that Kurds join the works of the Syrian constitutional committee and to represent the Kurdish political movement in the Syrian government.

Other points focused on the deployment of Syrian guards along the Syrian northern border from the Semalka crossing to the city of Manbij in the countryside of eastern Aleppo.

The Russian delegation also suggested the launch of a dialogue between the Kurdish self-administration in the north and east and the Syrian government.

In addition, the roadmap lists the need to form joint economic and military committees and to issue official papers for Kurds and official certificates for Kurdish students.

Also, the delegation enlisted that the two sides should coordinate to benefit from energy resources, particularly the Euphrates dam in the town of Tabqah, located in the Raqqa province, adding that the Syrian Army must withdraw from schools and universities in Kurdish areas.

The roadmap also suggests opening the road that links the city of Aleppo to the Iraqi border, through the town of Bukamal and to “remove the Kurdish threats and dangers and work on the safety of the Syrian Army checkpoints spread east the Euphrates.”

The sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Russian delegation travelled first to Damascus and held talks with the government on Dec. 25 and 26 before heading to Qamishli on the night of Dec. 26 to meet leading officials from the Syrian Democratic Union Party (PYD).

The sources predicted that the Russian delegation returns to Damascus in the next coming days to present new proposals after listening to the views of all concerned parties.



Fears for Gaza Hospitals as Fuel and Aid Run Low

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said Friday that hospitals have only two days' fuel left before they must restrict services, after the UN warned aid delivery to the war-devastated territory is being crippled. - AFP
The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said Friday that hospitals have only two days' fuel left before they must restrict services, after the UN warned aid delivery to the war-devastated territory is being crippled. - AFP
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Fears for Gaza Hospitals as Fuel and Aid Run Low

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said Friday that hospitals have only two days' fuel left before they must restrict services, after the UN warned aid delivery to the war-devastated territory is being crippled. - AFP
The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said Friday that hospitals have only two days' fuel left before they must restrict services, after the UN warned aid delivery to the war-devastated territory is being crippled. - AFP

The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said Friday that hospitals have only two days' fuel left before they must restrict services, after the UN warned aid delivery to the war-devastated territory is being crippled.

The warning came a day after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant more than a year into the Gaza war.

The United Nations and others have repeatedly decried humanitarian conditions, particularly in northern Gaza, where Israel said Friday it had killed two commanders involved in Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack that triggered the war.

Gaza medics said an overnight Israeli raid on the cities of Beit Lahia and nearby Jabalia resulted in dozens killed or missing.

Marwan al-Hams, director of Gaza's field hospitals, told reporters all hospitals in the Palestinian territory "will stop working or reduce their services within 48 hours due to the occupation's (Israel's) obstruction of fuel entry".

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was "deeply concerned about the safety and well-being of 80 patients, including 8 in the intensive care unit" at Kamal Adwan hospital, one of just two partly operating in northern Gaza.

Kamal Adwan director Hossam Abu Safia told AFP it was "deliberately hit by Israeli shelling for the second day" Friday and that "one doctor and some patients were injured".

Late Thursday, the UN's humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, Muhannad Hadi, said: "The delivery of critical aid across Gaza, including food, water, fuel and medical supplies, is grinding to a halt."

He said that for more than six weeks, Israeli authorities "have been banning commercial imports" while "a surge in armed looting" has hit aid convoys.

Issuing the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, the Hague-based ICC said there were "reasonable grounds" to believe they bore "criminal responsibility" for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, and crimes against humanity including over "the lack of food, water, electricity and fuel, and specific medical supplies".

At least 44,056 people have been killed in Gaza during more than 13 months of war, most of them civilians, according to figures from Gaza's health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.