In an interview with Tasnim, General Ismail Hakki Pekin, former head of intelligence department at Turkey’s General Staff, said the US and the West gave Syrian President Bashar al-Assad new proposals after the Syrian army’s success to recapture Aleppo.
Washington has proposed that the Damascus government remain in control of Aleppo and even Idlib, but a new government with ideologies similar to that of Daesh be created in Raqqa and Iraq’s Mosul, Pekin explained, saying they have also proposed the idea of establishment of a Kurdish government east of the Euphrates.
The former Turkish official also noted that liberation of Aleppo has enhanced Bashar al-Assad’s power and enabled Damascus and Moscow to take the initiative to settle the crisis in Syria.
On December 15, 2016, Syria announced the liberation of Aleppo, with President Bashar al-Assad praising the victory as “history in the making and worthy of more than the word ‘congratulations’.”
Syria has been gripped by civil war since March 2011 with various terrorist groups, including Daesh (also known as ISIS or ISIL), currently controlling parts of it.
According to a report by the Syrian Center for Policy Research, the conflict has claimed the lives of over 470,000 people, injured 1.9 million others, and displaced nearly half of the country’s pre-war population of about 23 million within or beyond its borders.