Syrian Exile Group Says Transitional Government Should Be Formed Through a UN-Backed Process

Members of the Syrian community wave Syrian flags in Berlin, Germany, and celebrate the end of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad's rule after opposition fighters took control of the Syrian capital Damascus on December 8, 2024. (Frank ZELLER / AFP)

Mohammad Salim Alkhateb, an official with the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces — an internationally backed group of the opposition in exile — said his group wants to see a transitional government formed via a United Nations-backed process in the wake of Bashar Assad ouster.
It is not yet clear if Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the main opposition group now in control of Syria, will pursue such a process. The group have said an interim government headed by Mohammad al-Bashir, who is also the head of the “salvation government” of HTS in its former stronghold in northern Syria, will oversee the country until March but have not made clear how the transition to a new, fully empowered government would take place.
“The transitional governing body should be formed in Geneva to have international legitimacy,” said Alkhateb, who is now in Damascus. “The transitional governing body, whatever its form, whether it is the ‘salvation government’ or any other, what matters is that it has international recognition.”
Alkhateb said that the unexpectedly rapid fall of Damascus and departure of Assad after opposition forces launched their offensive had created confusion and a governance vacuum.
A day before the opposition factions pushed into Damascus, diplomats from several countries met in Qatar to discuss the situation in Syria.
Alkhateb said that they had discussed a scenario in which the opposition would halt their advance, keeping the territory they had captured so far in the north — including Syria’s largest city, Aleppo — and the opposition and Assad’s government would go to Geneva for talks on a political settlement to the conflict.
However, he noted, “there were no Syrians in that meeting.”
Assad fled to Russia before the opposition forces arrived in Damascus but has not officially announced his resignation, which is “why we are living in a vacuum rather than a political transition,” Alkhateb said.
He added that creating a professional army should be a priority of the transitional government.
“We do not want a civilian who was trained during the revolution to carry military weapons to become the military,” he said.
Israel bombed hundreds of military sites in Syria this week in a wave of airstrikes that destroyed “most of the strategic weapons stockpiles” in the country. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the wave of airstrikes in neighboring Syria was necessary to keep the weapons from being used against Israel following the Syrian government’s stunning collapse.