AP assesses future for Assad and Syria

(7 Oct 2018) LEADIN:
The Syrian president has told a Kuwaiti newspaper that he has reached a "major understanding" with Arab states after years of hostility.
AP's news director for Syria assesses political progress in the war-torn nation.
STORYLINE:
Syrian President Bashar Assad this week told a little-known Kuwaiti newspaper that Syria has reached a "major understanding" with Arab states after years of hostility over the country's civil war.
Assad didn't name the Arab countries but said Arab and Western delegations have begun visiting Syria to prepare for the reopening of diplomatic and other missions.
Soon the civil war will be over, Assad told the paper's publisher, allowing Syria to resume its pivotal role in the region.
But the reality is "not that simple" according to AP's News Director for Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, Zeina Karam.
Karam says although the Assad regime has made significant militarily advances, a political solution to the seven-year war is nowhere in sight.
She says there are still many areas not under government control, with other significant players involved in the conflict.
Assad's interview in the Al-Shahed newspaper, published on Wednesday, was his first with a Gulf newspaper since the war began in 2011.
Syria's membership in the 22-member Arab League was suspended in the early days of the war and Arab countries later imposed economic sanctions after they failed to mediate an end to the conflict.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council have openly supported opposition groups fighting to overthrow Assad.
Kuwait hosted a number of donor conferences for aid to Syrians, but it also condemned violence blamed on the Syrian government.
The interview comes on the heels of a surprisingly warm meeting between the Syrian foreign minister and his Bahraini counterpart on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly on Saturday.
The encounter raised questions about whether the Gulf countries, most of them sworn enemies of Assad's ally Iran, are reconsidering their relations with Damascus as the war winds down.

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