9 October 2012. PenzaNews. Changing national form of government in the Syrian Arab Republic to federal is the only key to solving the most pressing problems facing the country today, including national ones. This opinion was expressed by Dr. Kamal Sido, the head of Middle East Department of the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) in an interview with news agency “PenzaNews.”

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According to him, Syria is now in a full-scale civil war, the groundwork for which was laid in early 2011 when a group of young people took to the streets to express dissatisfaction with the policy of the current government of the country.

“Protests against the current President Bashar al-Assad began in March 2011. He came to power after the death of his father, Hafez al-Assad, who had ruled Syria for almost 30 years. The revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia that resulted in the overthrow of long-time presidents Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak influenced the situation in Syria: people there started thinking, “Why cannot we do the same in our country, and why one and the same person should control the government for so long?” Active people, mostly young, took to the streets of the southern city of Daraa and began to write on the walls the phrases in Arabic which they had seen on television, “The people want the downfall of the regime.” Later, those who did it were seized by the police. Then the parents of the young people took to the streets demanding immediate release of their children. And this began to grow into a riot. Soon the unrest spread to other cities, and people began to put forward a variety of requirements — from the government’s resignation to the complete overthrow of the regime. The country’s government had to make concessions and began gradual modernization of existing legislation. At the same time, the opposition realized that most people do not want to support the protests against Bashar al-Assad, and the president himself was afraid that Egyptian and Tunisian events could repeat in Syria. So, both sides quickly began to militarize the processes within the country: the government responded to the demonstrations with heavy-handed force and the opposition, particularly the Muslim extremists took up arms. Thus, the peace movement suddenly turned into a serious military conflict,” the expert explained.

Kamal Sido stressed that at the same time other countries having their own interests in Syria began to intervene in the situation.

“Turkey under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a Sunni, supports the Muslim Brotherhood under the guise of a democratic change to expel Bashar al-Assad from the country; however, it is opposed to the Kurds having their own autonomy in the north of Syria. Until recently, these two countries were friends with each other, but then they did not find agreement on different issues: Syria began supporting Iran and Turkey has bad relations with Iran. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia and Qatar finance and arm Salafi and Wahhabi terrorists because they themselves are committed to extremism and want to establish a medieval Sharia law, which do not correspond to modern realities. Western countries and the US are trying to weaken Iran through Syria. Some experts say that their main goal is oil; however, I believe that the main thing is to break the Iranian-Syrian-Lebanese block and weakening Iran, as this country is the next on the list after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad. The only allies of the Syrian government are Russia and China, which have blocked the UN Security Council resolution, but those actions are not enough,” the analyst said.

Moreover, according to Kamal Sido, the US and Western countries’ support for the extremist opposition in Syria, and Russian support for the government of Bashar al-Assad will lead nowhere, and even if one of the parties wins in the near future, the situation in the country will remain tense.

“This will be a victory for those who speak on a particular side of the conflict, but not a victory of the Syrian people. Let’s look at the ethnic composition of the country. There are mainly the Syrian Arabs, professing Islam. Most of them are the Sunnis, the rest are the Alawites, Ismailis and Shiites the number of which in the last ten years is increasing because of the flow of refugees from Iraq. The northern Syria is inhabited by representatives of the largest ethnic minority, the Kurds; many of them still speak only their native language and their communities exist in all major cities of the country. Moreover, Palestinian Arabs, Armenians, Circassians who are by the way migrants from the Caucasus, Druze, Turkmen, Assyrians, Gypsies, Turks and Jews peacefully coexist in the country. And the current situation in Syria remains extremely difficult for these minorities, because they are afraid to take somebody’s side in the conflict — the side of Sunni opposition or the side of Bashar al-Assad, who himself is a representative of a national minority, the Alawites. However, those who live in Syria were never asked about what they want and how they see the future of their country,” he explained.

Kamal Sido also stressed that the German Society for Threatened Peoples, the experts of which are closely monitoring the situation, called upon all parties to seek a peaceful resolution of conflict in Syria.

“The main aim of our organization is monitoring respect for human rights around the world, and protection of minorities’ interests. We believe that there is a real civil war in Syria which can be stopped only by joint efforts of the international community but not by the means that are used now,” he added.

According to the expert, it is time to hold a major international conference, which should involve not only the authorities and the opposition, but all the minorities of the country as well.

“There were dozens of conferences but no one wanted to listen to those who live in Syria for many years and should determine the fate of their country. The main theme of the international conference should be a question of transition from national to federal form of government. National minorities should finally get the right to autonomy, so that they could fearlessly live, work and raise their children in their country. Federalism, as history shows, is an effective way to solve many pressing problems of multinational and multireligious states,” Kamal Sido said.

He also suggested that being strong and credible player on the world stage, the Russian Federation could become one of the initiators of the international conference with the participation of representatives of all nationalities of Syria.

“Russia has always had a good relationship with the Middle East but now it is time to act more decisively. If the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia comes up with such a proposal, I think that Russia will get a chance to show what it can do to solve this long-standing conflict. Moreover, in my opinion, the Russian Federation should conduct a more consistent and active foreign policy despite criticism from the US and several Western countries,” the interviewee concluded.

Kamal Sido was born on 10 August 1961 in the Kurdish district of Syria, Afrin.

In 1989 he earned his Ph.D. in History from the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Kamal Sido is a well-known international expert on the Middle East countries and author of several publications in Kurdish, Arabic, Russian, German, and Turkish.

Since 1990, he has lived in the Federal Republic of Germany. Since 2006, he has served as consultant for the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) in Goettingen.