Several hundred Syrians demonstrated Sunday in the rebel city of Idlib (northwestern Syria), to protest against the recent thaw in relations between Arab countries and the power of President Bashar al-Assad.
"
We came today (...) to reject normalization (...) with this murderous, criminal and terrorist regime
," Fahad Abdel Karim, a 49-year-old protester, told AFP.
"
We have come to send a message to the whole world: with this normalization, you will win Bashar al-Assad, the criminal, but you will lose the Syrian people," said another,
Abdelsalam Mohammed Youssef, head of a camp for displaced people. .
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Damascus was diplomatically isolated with the repression in 2011 of a popular uprising that degenerated into a bloody war.
But the devastating earthquake of February 6, which killed thousands in Turkey and Syria, allowed the power of Damascus to reconnect with many countries in the region.
In mid-April, the head of Saudi diplomacy Faisal ben Farhane thus made an unprecedented visit to Damascus where he was received by President Assad, confirming the reconciliation between the oil monarchy and Syria.
This visit, the first by a Saudi official to Syria since the war, comes in the wake of the recent unexpected rapprochement between Ryad and Tehran, a great ally of the Syrian president.
And this month, diplomats from nine Arab countries met in Saudi Arabia to discuss Syria's possible return to the Arab League (from which it was suspended in 2012), a still divisive issue across the country. within this organization.
“
Against any form of normalization with the cowardly criminal
”, “
he who forgives and reconciles with the enemy is the enemy
”, proclaimed banners during the demonstration on Sunday.
"
What Saudi Arabia and other countries are doing in terms of normalization is nothing but an affront
," said Hanifa al-Hammoud, a 22-year-old student.
Rebel-held Idlib is home to around three million people, nearly half of whom have been displaced by the war.
The Syrian conflict has caused around half a million deaths and millions of refugees or internally displaced persons.
President Assad is counting on full normalization with the Arab countries, in particular the rich monarchies of the Gulf, to finance the costly reconstruction of his country with its ravaged infrastructure.
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