NEW YORK - While Syria appears to be on the right path, “worries and frustrations” remain prevalent amid the reports of intercommunal violence and suppression of minorities, the president of the United Nations Security Council said Tuesday.
Responding to a question from Rudaw during a press briefing about the performance of the interim government in Syria, Sangjin Kim, South Korea’s chargé d’affaires to the UN and president of the UNSC for the month September, said that “a sense of hope is shared among at least 50 [UN] member countries that Syria is on the right track,” but also emphasized that concerns remain high.
Following a swift offensive in early December, a coalition of opposition forces - led by the now-dissolved Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), then headed by Ahmed al-Sharaa - toppled the regime of longtime Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. In late January, Sharaa was appointed interim president and pledged commitment to an inclusive political process.
However, in the following months, the interim government came under fire for several controversial decisions.
In March, Sharaa signed a constitutional declaration that centered on Islamic jurisprudence, drawing criticism from Syria’s Christian, Druze, Kurdish, and Alawite communities, who viewed it as exclusionary.
The document also grants Sharaa authority to appoint one-third of the country’s legislature. Syria is set to hold its first post-Assad elections in mid-September. However, in late August, the country’s electoral commission said the vote would be put off in Kurdish and Druze majority provinces, citing “security concerns.”
The Kurdish administration in northeast Syria (Rojava) swiftly censured the decision and the electoral process as “undemocratic,” adding that it "does not reflect the will of the Syrian people.