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Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Wednesday urged governments around the world to rescind their terrorist designations of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Syrian rebel group that overthrew dictator Bashar Assad last week.
“I think it is time for the international community, starting from the U.N., to remove their name from the list,” Fidan said in an interview with Al Jazeera News.
“I think HTS has taken huge steps to divorcing itself from al-Qaeda and Daesh and other radical elements,” he said. “Daesh” is another name for the Islamic State.
HTS used to be al-Qaeda’s terrorist franchise in Syria, but the group rebranded itself several times during the decade-long Syrian civil war, seeking to distance itself from al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.
When it launched the lightning-fast offensive that toppled Assad, HTS insisted it had become a more “moderate” and “inclusive” Islamist organization, and would respect all of Syria’s many minority groups once it seized power. The group now claims it will relinquish control after a three-month “transition period” in favor of a more broad-based Syrian government with a new national constitution.
Fidan acknowledged that Turkey also classifies HTS as a terrorist organization, but he said Ankara now regards the insurgent group as a “legitimate partner” and will take steps to rescind its terrorist designation without waiting for the U.N., the United States, or European powers to make their own decisions.
Fidan noted that Turkey has reopened its embassy in Damascus after 12 years. Representatives of the HTS transitional government were present when the new charge d’affaires was ceremonially installed last Saturday, and the Turkish flag was once more raised over the facility.
The Turkish foreign minister chided the United States and European powers for fretting about HTS while refusing to recognize Syrian Kurdish militia groups as terrorist threats.
Fidan accused the West of turning a “blind eye” to the “fact” that the Kurdish YPG, a major U.S. ally in the battle against ISIS, is actually an “extension of the PKK,” the violent Kurdish separatist group in Turkey. He called on the United States to stop supporting the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led alliance.
HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, now going by his birth name Ahmed al-Sharaa, told Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak on Wednesday that he looks forward to developing a “strategic relationship” with Turkey.
“There will also be mutual commercial relations. We trust Turkey when it comes to transferring its experience in economic development to Syria,” he said.
The HTS leader urged all Syrians to remember the “kindness” Turkey showed by taking in some three million Syrian refugees during the long and brutal civil war.
Turkey would be making a major break with precedent by removing HTS from its list of designated terrorist organizations without waiting for the United Nations to do so. The U.N. added HTS to its terrorist list in 2015, back when the group was known as the Nusra Front.
Senior U.N. political affairs officer Kiho Cha said last week that all U.N. member states are “expected to comply” with the asset freezes, travel bans, and arms embargo imposed against HTS and its leadership over the past nine years.
“Unilateral sanctions run parallel to U.N. sanctions, but they are generally treated as a separate set of coercive measures,” Cha noted.
According to Cha, HTS can only be removed from the U.N. terrorist list if a member state proposes delisting and the 15-member U.N. Security Council (UNSC) proceeds to “make a unanimous decision to approve the proposal.”
