Tabnak – More than six years after the outbreak of civil war in Syria and while the country is still trying to get rid of the ISIS terrorists, United Nations has raised a hopeful picture on the defeat of the terrorist group.
ISIS’ remaining Syrian strongholds are likely to fall by the end of October, which must be the trigger for the international community to push for free and fair elections, Reuters quoted UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura as saying of Friday.
"What we are seeing is in my opinion the beginning of the end of this war… what we need to make sure is that this becomes also the beginning of peace. And that is where the challenge starts at this very moment,” he said in a BBC radio interview.
Three places were still far from stabilized, de Mistura said: Raqqa, Deir al-Zor and Idlib.
"After Raqqa and Deir al-Zor, and that is a matter of a few months, there will be a moment of truth. If the international community will be helping both the opposition and the government by pushing the government to accept a real negotiation, then within a year it would be a possibility of having a truly credible election.”
This is while, it’s also announced on Friday that US-backed fighters had ousted ISIS from Raqqa's Old City bringing them closer than ever to the terrorists' most well-defended positions.
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) spokesman Talal Sello, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS, said: "Our forces today seized full control of the Old City in Raqa after clashes with Daesh. We are on the edges of ISIS' security quarter in the city center, where most of its main bases are.”
Most of ISISI’ fighters and up to 25,000 civilians are expected to still be holed up in the city center. The SDF's Arab and Kurdish fighters first broke into Raqqa in early June and penetrated its Old City a month later.
Meanwhile, in a move interpreted by some analysts as a kind of show of strength and control over the country, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad performed on Friday Adha Eid prayer at Sayyedna Bilal Mosque in Qara city in Qalamoun in the province of Damascus Countryside.
Minister of Awqaf (Religious Endowments) and Grand Mufti of the Republic also performed the prayers, along with a number of MPs and officials from Damascus Countryside, several clergymen and a crowd of citizens.
However, it seems that some foreign countries are still attempting to push Assad out of power by any means possible. In this vein, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Friday that Assad "cannot be the solution" for Syria. This is a return to a position questioned in July by French President Emmanuel Macron.
"He cannot be the solution," Le Drian said. "The solution is to establish... a timeline for political transition that can lead to a new constitution and elections, and this transition cannot happen with Bashar al-Assad."
Nonetheless, as it has been the case during the last six years, such statements, either regarding the full defeat of ISIS or who will rule Syria thereafter are just speculations and the final outcome will be determined by the developments on the field.
