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Syria’s de facto leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has said the country is exhausted by war and is not a threat to its neighbors or the West.
In an interview with the BBC in Damascus, he called for the lifting of sanctions on Syria.
“Now, after everything that has happened, the sanctions must be lifted because they were aimed at the old regime. The victim and the oppressor must not be treated in the same way,” he said.
Sharaa led the lightning offensive that toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime less than two weeks ago. He is the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the ruling group in the rebel alliance, and was previously known by his wartime alias of Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.
He said HTS should be delisted as a terrorist organization. It is designated as one by the UN, the US, the EU and the UK, among many others, as it began as a splinter group of al-Qaeda, from which it split in 2016.
Sharaa said HTS was not a terrorist group.
They did not target civilians or civilian areas, he said. In fact, they considered themselves victims of the crimes of the Assad regime.
He denied that he wanted to turn Syria into a version of Afghanistan.
Sharaa said that the countries were very different, with different traditions. Afghanistan was a tribal society. In Syria, he said, there was a different mentality.
She said she believed in education for women.
“We have had universities in Idlib for more than eight years,” Sharaa said, referring to the northwestern Syrian province that has been controlled by rebels since 2011.
“I think the percentage of women in universities is over 60%.”
And when asked if alcohol consumption would be allowed, Sharaa said: “There’s a lot of things I’m not allowed to talk about because they’re legal matters.”
He added that there would be a “Syrian committee of legal experts to draft a constitution. They will decide. And any ruler or president will have to follow the law.”
Sharaa appeared relaxed throughout the interview, dressed in civilian clothes, and sought to reassure those who believe his group has not broken with its extremist past.
Many Syrians do not believe him.
The actions of Syria’s new rulers in the coming months will indicate the kind of country they want Syria to be and the way they want to govern it.
