US, EU must jointly resolve Middle East refugee crisis

Yet a peaceful solution to the Middle East conundrum was not impossible. China had suggested a political solution: Syrians should be allowed to decide their future through political means. But the US made the resignation of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a prerequisite to political negotiations, which ended the negotiation bid even before it started.

Restoring peace in Syria now is impossible without the elimination of IS in Iraq as well. The US has been carrying out air strikes on IS targets for a year, yet the extremist outfit shows no signs of collapsing, because only a concerted ground attack from Syria-Iraq border can end the IS menace. And though the IS cannot be defeated without the Syrian government’s cooperation, political interests are stopping the US from seeking it.

Last month, after meeting with Syrian opposition leaders in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov proposed a new political settlement plan for Syria and forming a broader coalition, which would include the Syrian government forces, Iraqi forces and Kurdish forces, to fight the IS. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi supported the plan during his recent visit to Russia.

And on Sept 4, at a press conference on Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz’s visit to the US, President Barack Obama expressed concern over the Syrian crisis and said the two leaders would talk about how to end it. One day before that, in response to reports that Russia might launch air strikes on IS targets, the White House welcomed “Russian support and contribution” to the-US coalition against the extremist outfit, but warned that, “any military support to the Assad regime for any purpose … is both destabilizing and counterproductive”.

It seems all sides are making efforts to eliminate the IS but still differ on how it could be done best. Let’s hope they settle their differences soon, because as long as chaos continues in Syria and Iraq, more refugees will flee to Europe.

The author is China’s former ambassador to Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon and Algeria, and a councilor at a thinktank on Middle East studies, Shanghai International Studies University.