Arabs Divided over Syrian-Turkish Normalization and its Conditions 

In this photo released by the official Syrian state news agency SANA, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, left, speaks with United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed in Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2023. (SANA via AP)
In this photo released by the official Syrian state news agency SANA, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, left, speaks with United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed in Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2023. (SANA via AP)
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Arabs Divided over Syrian-Turkish Normalization and its Conditions 

In this photo released by the official Syrian state news agency SANA, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, left, speaks with United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed in Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2023. (SANA via AP)
In this photo released by the official Syrian state news agency SANA, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, left, speaks with United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed in Damascus, Syria, Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2023. (SANA via AP)

The United Arab Emirates – through senior officials - is seeking to join Russia in sponsoring the normalization of relations between Syria and Türkiye. The United States and Arab countries, meanwhile, are seeking to halt the normalization efforts, or at least, place conditions before they can be complete, signaling Arab division over the issue. 

Asharq Al-Awsat learned that Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal al-Mikdad will meet with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu in the presence of Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on Wednesday. Efforts are underway to arrange for UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed’s participation at the meeting. 

The meeting will pave the way for a summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The UAE has offered to host the summit. Should Moscow host the summit, then the UAE will send a high-level delegation to attend. Assad had visited the UAE in mid-2022 where he met with President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed. 

The potential summit was discussed between Assad and Sheikh Abdullah in Damascus on Wednesday. This was the Emirati official’s second visit to the Syrian capital since November 2021. 

Assad described ties between Syria and the UAE as “historic”, adding that it was “natural that they return to the depth that they enjoyed for several decades, in service of their countries and peoples,” reported Syria’s state news agency SANA. 

The UAE FM stressed that his country “supports stability in Syria and its sovereignty over all its territories.” He underscored the UAE’s “commitment to and keenness on supporting efforts to reach a political solution to the Syrian crisis that would restore security and stability and Syria’s unity.” 

Roadmap 

Asharq Al-Awsat also learned that Cavusoglu is planning on visiting Washington on January 16 and 17 to brief American officials on the progress in normalizing ties with Damascus and his meeting with Mikdad. 

He will also brief them on the “roadmap” that Russia is sponsoring on the security, military, economic and political levels and in line with the agreement reached between Russia, Syria and Türkiye’s defense ministers and intelligence chiefs in recent weeks. The roadmap also covers arrangements in northeastern Syria where US troops are deployed in support of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the fight against ISIS. 

A western diplomat told Asharq Al-Awsat that a senior American official will visit Ankara in the coming hours as part of efforts to mediate between Türkiye and the Kurds in northeastern Syria. 

Ankara has been demanding that Moscow and Washington commit to the implementation of the military agreements they signed in late 2019 and that call for the withdrawal of the backbone of the SDF, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), 30 kilometers deep from Syria’s northern border with Türkiye. The withdrawal also includes the regions of Manbij and Tal Rifaat and demands the removal of heavy weapons from the buffer zone. 

The SDF has said that it has fulfilled its commitments and that it will not pull out the Asayish police force and dismantle the local councils. Türkiye is insisting on the dismantling of all Kurdish civilian and military institutions in the area. 

The American mediation is aiming to reach middle ground between Ankara and the Kurds to avert a new Turkish incursion in Syria before the Turkish presidential and parliamentary elections set for mid-2023. 

Erdogan is banking on Moscow and Washington’s need for him due to the Russian war on Ukraine. Erdogan has shown more openness towards meeting Assad to agree on arrangements against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and YPG in northeastern Syria and form safe zones for the return of Syrian refugees from Türkiye, which has taken in some 4 million of them. 

Another diplomat has said that Ankara was “uneasy” with the leaks that came out from Damascus in wake of the meeting between the Russia, Syrian and Turkish defense ministers in Moscow that allegedly included an agreement for Türkiye to withdraw from northern Syria. 

Another diplomat revealed, however, that Damascus and Ankara view the PKK as a common threat and they will work against any separatist agenda because it would pose an existential danger to both countries. Syria and Türkiye also agreed to work on reopening the Aleppo-Latakia highway. 

Western coordination 

Sheikh Abdullah’s visit to Damascus took place in wake of American official statements that expressed opposition to normalization with Assad. The statements were issued in wake of the Syrian-Turkish meetings. 

A diplomat revealed that the US State Department was the only party among western countries to release a statement to voice opposition to the normalization. It is working with Paris, Berlin and London to issue a clear joint position that rejects normalization. 

Contacts are underway to hold a meeting between representatives of the US, France, Germany and Britain with United Nations envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, in Geneva on January 23 ahead of his visit to Damascus to meet Mikdad.  

The meeting will aim to underscore the stance on normalization and support offering funding to electricity and early recovery projects, in line with the relevant UN Security Council resolution that will be up for extension on January 10. Here, the UAE has offered to contribute in financing economic and electricity projects in Syria within the margin allowed by US sanctions and the Ceasar Act. 

Jordan was notably the first party to open higher levels of communication with Damascus. It backed the signing of a truce that covered southern Syria and the deal on easing the escalation between Russia and the US in mid-2018. Amman is now leading Arab efforts to reach a “joint Arab position that sets the Arab conditions in exchange for the normalization, for which a price will be extracted.” 

A western official said Jordan has noted that the smuggling of Captagon, weapons and ammunition across its border from Syria increased after normalization efforts kicked off. Moreover, Iran’s presence in southern Syria, near the Jordanian border, has not decreased. ISIS has also increased its activity there. 

Demands are therefore being made to coordinate efforts to pressure Damascus to offer political and geopolitical steps in the coming phase. 

Meanwhile, an Arab source revealed that a Palestinian Hamas delegation, including the movement’s leader in the Gaza Strip Khalil al-Hayya and leading member Osama Abou Hamdan, will visit Damascus next week. This will mark the first such visit since the Hamas leadership quit Damascus a decade ago. 

The same officials were part of a Palestinian delegation that had met Assad in October. Sources said Hayya and Abou Hamdan’s visit aims to discuss Hamas’ return to Syria and arrange for visits by more leading members to Damascus in the future. 



Fear Stalks Tehran as Israel Bombards, Shelters Fill Up and Communicating Grows Harder

Shops remain shuttered Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP)
Shops remain shuttered Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP)
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Fear Stalks Tehran as Israel Bombards, Shelters Fill Up and Communicating Grows Harder

Shops remain shuttered Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP)
Shops remain shuttered Tehran's historic Grand Bazaar, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP)

The streets of Tehran are empty, businesses closed, communications patchy at best. With no bona fide bomb shelters open to the public, panicked masses spend restless nights on the floors of metro stations as strikes boom overhead.

This is Iran’s capital city, just under a week into a fierce Israeli blitz to destroy the country's nuclear program and its military capabilities. After knocking out much of Iran's air defense system, Israel says its warplanes have free rein over the city's skies. US President Donald Trump on Monday told Tehran's roughly 10 million residents to evacuate “immediately.”

Thousands have fled, spending hours in gridlock as they head toward the suburbs, the Caspian Sea, or even Armenia or Türkiye. But others — those elderly and infirm — are stuck in high-rise apartment buildings. Their relatives fret: what to do?

Israeli strikes on Iran have killed at least 585 people and wounded over 1,300, a human rights group says. State media, also a target of bombardment, have stopped reporting on the attacks, leaving Iranians in the dark. There are few visible signs of state authority: Police appear largely undercover, air raid sirens are unreliable, and there’s scant information on what to do in case of attack.

Shirin, 49, who lives in the southern part of Tehran, said every call or text to friends and family in recent days has felt like it could be the last.

“We don’t know if tomorrow we will be alive,” she said.

Many Iranians feel conflicted. Some support Israel's targeting of Iranian political and military officials they see as repressive. Others staunchly defend the country and retaliatory strikes on Israel. Then, there are those who oppose Iran’s rulers, but still don't want to see their country bombed.

To stay, or to go? The Associated Press interviewed five people in Iran and one Iranian American in the US over the phone. All spoke either on the condition of anonymity or only allowed their first names to be used, for fear of retribution from the state against them or their families.

Most of the calls ended abruptly and within minutes, cutting off conversations as people grew nervous or because the connection dropped. Iran’s government has acknowledged disrupting internet access. It says it's to protect the country, though that has blocked average Iranians from getting information from the outside world.

Iranians in the diaspora wait anxiously for news from relatives. One, an Iranian American human rights researcher in the US, said he last heard from relatives when some were trying to flee Tehran earlier in the week. He believes that lack of gas and traffic prevented them from leaving.

The most heartbreaking interaction, he said, was when his older cousins with whom he grew up in Iran told him “We don’t know where to go. If we die, we die.”

“Their sense was just despair,” he said.

Some families have made the decision to split up.

A 23-year-old Afghan refugee who has lived in Iran for four years said he stayed behind in Tehran but sent his wife and newborn son out of the city after a strike Monday hit a nearby pharmacy.

“It was a very bad shock for them,” he said.

Some, like Shirin, said fleeing was not an option. The apartment buildings in Tehran are towering and dense. Her father has Alzheimer’s and needs an ambulance to move. Her mother's severe arthritis would make even a short trip extremely painful.

Still, hoping escape might be possible, she spent the last several days trying to gather their medications. Her brother waited at a gas station until 3 a.m., only to be turned away when the fuel ran out. As of Monday, gas was being rationed to under 20 liters (5 gallons) per driver at stations across Iran after an Israeli strike set fire to the world's largest gas field.

Some people, like Arshia, said they are just tired.

“I don’t want to go in traffic for 40 hours, 30 hours, 20 hours, just to get to somewhere that might get bombed eventually,” he said.

The 22-year-old has been staying in the house with his parents since the initial Israeli strike. He said his once-lively neighborhood of Saadat Abad in northwestern Tehran is now a ghost town. Schools are closed. Very few people even step outside to walk their dogs. Most local stores have run out of drinking water and cooking oil. Others closed.

Still, Arshia said the prospect of finding a new place is too daunting.

“We don’t have the resources to leave at the moment,” he said.

Residents are on their own

No air raid sirens went off as Israeli strikes began pounding Tehran before dawn Friday. For many, it was an early sign civilians would have to go it alone.

During the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, Tehran was a low-slung city, many homes had basements to shelter in, and there were air raid drills and sirens. Now the capital is packed with close-built high-rise apartments without shelters.

“It's a kind of failing of the past that they didn’t build shelters,” said a 29-year-old Tehran resident who left the city Monday. “Even though we’ve been under the shadow of a war, as long as I can remember.”

Her friend's boyfriend was killed while going to the store.

“You don’t really expect your boyfriend or your anyone, really to leave the house and never return when they just went out for a routine normal shopping trip,” she said.

Those who choose to relocate do so without help from the government. The state has said it is opening mosques, schools and metro stations for use as shelters. Some are closed, others overcrowded.

Hundreds crammed into one Tehran metro station Friday night. Small family groups lay on the floor. One student, a refugee from another country, said she spent 12 hours in the station with her relatives.

“Everyone there was panicking because of the situation,” she said. “Everyone doesn’t know what will happen next, if there is war in the future and what they should do. People think nowhere is safe for them.”

Soon after leaving the station, she saw that Israel had warned a swath of Tehran to evacuate.

“For immigrant communities, this is so hard to live in this kind of situation,” she said, explaining she feels like she has nowhere to escape to, especially not her home country, which she asked not be identified.

Fear of Iran mingles with fear of Israel

For Shirin, the hostilities are bittersweet. Despite being against the theocracy and its treatment of women, the idea that Israel may determine the future does not sit well with her.

“As much as we want the end of this regime, we didn’t want it to come at the hands of a foreign government,” she said. “We would have preferred that if there were to be a change, it would be the result of a people’s movement in Iran.”

Meanwhile, the 29-year-old who left Tehran had an even more basic message for those outside Iran:

“I just want people to remember that whatever is happening here, it’s not routine business for us. People’s lives here — people’s livelihoods — feel as important to them as they feel to anyone in any other place. How would you feel if your city or your country was under bombardment by another country, and people were dying left and right?”

“We are kind of like, this can’t be happening. This can’t be my life.”