Western refusal to fund the reconstruction of territory held by Syrian dictator Bashar Assad is an “evil practice,” according to a top Russian diplomat.
“Their key message was the reluctance to provide assistance to reconstruct Syria until political reforms are carried out there,” Vassily Nebenzia, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, told TASS, a state-run outlet. “If we take part in this meeting, we won’t blow their trumpet, but will make another attempt to persuade our colleagues to give up their evil practice.”
Nebenzia was referring to a meeting that the European Union has planned for the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly next week in New York. Western powers have pledged $4.3 billion so far to rebuild Syria following years of civil war, but Russia — which intervened alongside Iran to prevent Assad’s overthrow — doesn’t have the money to rebuild the regions that Assad has taken from U.S.-backed rebels and terrorist groups. So, Russia has argued that the U.S. and Germany should help stabilize Assad territory in order to allow Syrian refugees to return home.
“We must reinforce the humanitarian dimension of the Syrian conflict, and by that I mean boost humanitarian assistance to the Syrian population, and help the regions where refugees living abroad can return to,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said last month. “This is potentially a huge burden for Europe.”
President Trump’s administration and other Western officials have spent years denouncing Assad for using chemical weapons and committing other war crimes against the Syrian people in the course of his effort to cling to power.
“[T]hey want us to clean up all the roads, bridges, and homes that Russian jets, Iranian-backed militias, and Syrian shells destroyed,” Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, said last month. “The United States will not consider such requests for reconstruction aid until we see concrete results from a genuine political process that ends the war and offers freedom to the Syrian people.”
Trump has ordered two airstrikes against Assad in retaliation for chemical weapons attack, but his team — like former President Barack Obama’s — has avoided any military moves dramatic enough to drive the Assad regime from power. But U.S. officials hope that financial pressure will do what the fighting could not.
“It’s just reality: Syria, by World Bank estimates, [it will require] more than $200 billion to reconstruct Syria,” Brett McGurk, the U.S. official overseeing counter-Islamic State operations in the region, said in 2017. “It’s probably many multiples of that. And the international community is not going to come to the aid of Syria until there is a credible political horizon that can lead to a credible political transition in Syria. That is the reality.”
