US, Russia at Odds over Syrian Refugee Conference

Washington is intensifying its diplomatic efforts to ensure that European and Arab countries and United Nations agencies boycott Damascus’ upcoming Syrian refugee conference, set for November 11 and 12.

The United States is seeking to underscore the “Russian delusions” over the conference and make sure that it foils Moscow’s plan to end Damascus’ isolation, restore legitimacy to the Syrian government and “transform military achievements into political acceptance.” Moreover, Washington is working on preventing Russia from separating the refugee file and political process from the implementation of UN Security Council resolution 2254.

Invitation from Hmeimim
Russia first made the invitation to attend the conference from its Hmeimim air base on Syrian soil back in October. Asharq Al-Awsat obtained a copy of the invitation, which said that the settlement of the Syrian crisis and restoring the situation “back to the way it was” are “at the top of any international agenda.”

In this regard, Russia believes that it is important to return all refugees and displaced throughout the world back to their countries. “Seeing as the Syrian crisis has stabilized somewhat and the burdens have increased on countries hosting refugees, the international community is obligated to double its efforts to offer comprehensive support to all Syrians wishing to return home,” read the invitation.

It must also ensure that the necessary living conditions, such as infrastructure and humanitarian support, are provided. “Russia is therefore, proposing holding an international conference in Damascus between November 10 and 14 to discuss the means to support the refugees and displaced throughout the world, as well as address how to restore peace in Syria,” it added.

Russia is hoping that the conference will include roundtable discussions that include providing assistance to the returnees, repairing the social infrastructure, presenting international aid and discussing means to confront the novel coronavirus outbreak.

Damascus appeared displeased with the Russian wording of the invitation, especially when it claimed that the crisis has “stabilized somewhat.” It instead believes that the conflict is still raging amid the regime push to recapture northwestern and northeastern parts of the war-torn country.

Damascus, therefore, released its own invitation to the conference on October 20. The invitation was sent to foreign diplomatic missions and the UN.

Asharq Al-Awsat received a copy of the invitation, which read: “The return of security and stability to large swathes of Syrian territory and the kicking off of reconstruction, specifically in infrastructure, are fundamental steps in providing the necessary conditions for the return of Syrian refugees and displaced to their cities and villages so that they can resume their normal lives.”

It noted that several general amnesty decisions have been released and settlements have been reached with citizens who were forced to illegally leave the country due to the war. The Syrian government is “always prepared to offer all means to support the returning citizens to ensure that they lead a dignified life.”

“The government realizes that the greatest loss in the ongoing war is the departure of Syrians from their nation. This demands that no effort be spared in ensuring their return and participation in reconstruction,” it continued. In order to do discuss these issues further, it said the Syrian government was hosting in Damascus on November 11 and 12 an international conference on the return of refugees.

It said that all precautions against the coronavirus have been taken to ensure the success of the meeting and “deliver a message of hope to Syrians living abroad that their country is waiting for them.”

Soon after the Russian invitation was sent out, a European meeting, with American coordination, was held where participants declared their collective boycott of the conference.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borell said: “Everybody wants the refugees to go back home, but these returns must be safe, voluntary and dignified, in line with the parameters defined by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).”

“The conditions inside Syria do not fulfil these minimum requirements. I think everybody agrees on that,” he remarked to the press on October 12. “So, we consider the Russian initiative as premature. We also think that the UNHCR should be fully associated to such initiatives in the future. We are not opposed to exploring the important issue of refugees’ returns, but it has to be on the basis of agreed parameters and in close coordination with the UN.”

On October 22, the Foreign Ministers of the Small Group on Syria, which includes Saudi Arabia, Egypt, France, Germany, Jordan, the US and Britain, met to stress their continued support of a political resolution of the Syrian crisis according to resolution 2254.

“After almost 10 years of conflict, the people of Syria have suffered deeply. Hundreds of thousands have been killed and millions forcibly displaced. Now facing COVID-19 and continued economic difficulties, we want to highlight again the importance of providing safe and unhindered humanitarian access for all Syrians currently in need of it, including areas where conditions are noticeably deteriorating, as in Idlib province and South Syria,” it said in a statement.

“We would also like to urge the international community to continue supporting Syrian refugees and their hosting countries and communities until Syrians can voluntarily return home in safety, dignity and security. We also oppose forced demographic change and commit to disburse no assistance for any resettlement of Syrian refugees that is not in line with UNHCR standards,” it added.

Washington believes that the Russian initiative has three flaws. First, it was seeking to pressure Europe into joining an “exchange whereby refugees can go back home in return for offering financial assistance to regime-held areas.” Russia is mistaken in believing that Europe can be swayed, when in fact its position on the Syrian conflict is firm.

Second, it believed that it could create a gap between hosting countries and the international community. It is again wrong, because Arab countries do not believe that the conditions are appropriate for the refugees to return home, despite pressure from Moscow and Tehran on Syria’s neighboring countries to that end.

Third, it is banking on a change in Washington in wake of the US presidential election. This is also wrong, because the policy on Syria will not change and the sanctions imposed by the Caesar Act will continue.

“As long as the regime remains the same and maintains its behavior, then the refugees will not return,” said a western official. “Moscow, Tehran and Damascus are responsible for the problem and they cannot be responsible for the solution.”

“There is only one way to provide the necessary conditions for the return of refugees and that is the implementation of a real political solution, implementation of resolution 2254 and change in the regime’s behavior towards its people,” he stressed.

Russian campaign
Russia has countered Washington’s push against the Damascus conference. It dispatched Alexander Lavrentiev, President Vladimir Putin's special envoy for Syria, to Amman, Beirut and Damascus for diplomatic talks on attending the conference.

The envoy briefed Syrian president Bashar Assad on his discussions last week. The two sides discussed efforts to ensure the conference achieves positive results towards “alleviating the suffering of Syrian refugees and allowing them to return to their homeland and their normal life,” particularly after restoring stability and security in most of Syria, according to the Syrian state news agency SANA.

Both sides were in agreement on holding the conference away from politics, accusing some western countries of “abusing this file for political gain, thereby prolonging the suffering of the refugees and preventing them from returning home.”

Lavrentiev’s tour did not include Turkey, which is host to the largest number of Syrian refugees. It expressed its “disappointment” that the conference was being arranged without it. Close Damascus ally, Tehran, predictably voiced its support for the conference and “advised” Beirut to do the same.

According to the UNHCR, some 5.6 million Syrians have sought refuge in Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Egypt. Turkey alone hosts some 3.5 million, Lebanon 952,000 and Jordan 673,000. Some 7 million Syrians are displaced in their own country.

Remote, icy and mostly pristine, Greenland plays an outsized role in the daily weather experienced by billions of people and in the climate changes taking shape all over the planet.

Greenland is where climate change, scarce resources, tense geopolitics and new trade patterns all intersect, said Ohio University security and environment professor Geoff Dabelko.

The world's largest island is now "central to the geopolitical, geoeconomic competition in many ways," partly because of climate change, Dabelko said.

Since his first term in office, President-elect Donald Trump has expressed interest in acquiring Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of Denmark, a longtime US ally and a founding member of NATO. It is also home to a large US military base.

Why is Greenland coveted? Think of Greenland as an open refrigerator door or thermostat for a warming world, and it's in a region that is warming four times faster than the rest of the globe, said New York University climate scientist David Holland.

Locked inside are valuable rare earth minerals needed for telecommunications, as well as uranium, billions of untapped barrels of oil and a vast supply of natural gas that used to be inaccessible but is becoming less so.

Many of the same minerals are currently being supplied mostly by China, so other countries such as the United States are interested, Dabelko said. Three years ago, the Denmark government suspended oil development offshore from the territory of 57,000 people.

But more than the oil, gas or minerals, there's ice — a "ridiculous" amount, said climate scientist Eric Rignot of the University of California, Irvine.

If that ice melts, it would reshape coastlines across the globe and potentially shift weather patterns in such a dramatic manner that the threat was the basis of a Hollywood disaster movie. Greenland holds enough ice that if it all melts, the world's seas would rise by 24 feet (7.4 meters). Nearly a foot of that is so-called zombie ice, already doomed to melt no matter what happens, a 2022 study found.

Since 1992, Greenland has lost about 182 billion tons (169 billion metric tons) of ice each year, with losses hitting 489 billion tons a year (444 billion metric tons) in 2019.

Greenland will be "a key focus point" through the 21st century because of the effect its melting ice sheet will have on sea levels, said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado. "It will likely become a bigger contributor in the future."

That impact is "perhaps unstoppable," NYU's Holland said.

Are other climate factors at play? Greenland also serves as the engine and on/off switch for a key ocean current that influences Earth's climate in many ways, including hurricane and winter storm activity. It's called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, and it's slowing down because more fresh water is being dumped into the ocean by melting ice in Greenland, Serreze said.

A shutdown of the AMOC conveyor belt is a much-feared climate tipping point that could plunge Europe and parts of North America into prolonged freezes, a scenario depicted in the 2004 movie "The Day After Tomorrow."

"If this global current system were to slow substantially or even collapse altogether — as we know it has done in the past — normal temperature and precipitation patterns around the globe would change drastically," said climate scientist Jennifer Francis of the Woodwell Climate Research Center. "Agriculture would be derailed, ecosystems would crash, and ‘normal’ weather would be a thing of the past."

Greenland is also changing color as it melts from the white of ice, which reflects sunlight, heat and energy away from the planet, to the blue and green of the ocean and land, which absorb much more energy, Holland said.

Greenland plays a role in the dramatic freeze that two-thirds of the United States is currently experiencing. And back in 2012, weather patterns over Greenland helped steer Superstorm Sandy into New York and New Jersey, according to winter weather expert Judah Cohen of the private firm Atmospheric and Environmental Research.

Because of Greenland's mountains of ice, it also changes patterns in the jet stream, which brings storms across the globe and dictates daily weather. Often, especially in winter, a blocking system of high pressure off Greenland causes Arctic air to plunge to the west and east, smacking North America and Europe, Cohen said.

Why is Greenland's location so important? Because it straddles the Arctic circle between the United States, Russia and Europe, Greenland is a geopolitical prize that the US and others have eyed for more than 150 years. It's even more valuable as the Arctic opens up more to shipping and trade.

None of that takes into consideration the unique look of the ice-covered island that has some of the Earth's oldest rocks.

"I see it as insanely beautiful. It's eye-watering to be there," said Holland, who has conducted research on the ice more than 30 times since 2007. "Pieces of ice the size of the Empire State Building are just crumbling off cliffs and crashing into the ocean. And also, the beautiful wildlife, all the seals and the killer whales. It’s just breathtaking."

US, Russia at Odds over Syrian Refugee Conference