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The Russian proposal to create ‘de-escalation areas’ in Syria has triggered further fears of Syria’s fragmentation, with the ‘de-escalation areas’ seen as providing the building blocks for the ‘federalisation’ of Syria supposedly envisaged by the draft constitution for Syria which the Russians circulated to the participants of the Astana conference a few weeks ago.
These fears are by no means unfounded. There are many factors within Syria that work against the reunification of the country into a unitary state. However I doubt the Russians are one of them.
The 21st century has witnessed what many would call a sharp decline in the strength and stability in governments promoting Arab nationalism. Whether Ba’athism, Nasserism or Libya’s unique Third International Theory, many of the regimes that were once bulwarks of the various ideologies of Pan-Arabism have either been destroyed or severely compromised.
Using the Article-Paragraph system whereby 1-3 refers to Article 1, Paragraph 3, for example, the Russian-written “draft constitution” proposes:
* 4-2 giving the Kurds equal use of their language alongside Arabic within their “cultural autonomy”;
* 4-3 suggesting that it can be used in schools, though not stipulating whether or not this is limited to the “cultural autonomy” zone or nationwide;
On 28th December 2016, the day before the Russian and Turkish Foreign Ministries communicated their ceasefire plan to the UN Secretary General and to the UN Security Council, a report appeared in Reuters which claimed that Russia and Turkey have come to a private understanding to divide Syria into “zones of influence”.
Supposedly this also involves the ultimate removal from power of Syrian President Assad, though supposedly Iran has not agreed to this.
