Local negotiations committees in the southern Daraa governorate are rejecting demands listed in a Russian roadmap for ending the escalation of violence in the region.
The Syrian Army’s 4th Armored Division has been insisting on opposition fighters in the governorate handing over all weapons and those opposing a settlement.
It is bent on raiding homes in Daraa and setting up military checkpoints across the provincial capital, also named Daraa.
Negotiations are underway with no breakthrough in sight, local sources at the Daraa central negotiations committee told Asharq Al-Awsat.
According to sources, negotiations were set back by the regime security committee’s demands for Daraa residents to surrender their light arms, a matter rejected by the opposition’s central negotiations committee, which maintains the need for returning to the 2018 settlement.
“Locals in Daraa and other besieged areas refuse to slip into violence and support a Syrian settlement, but the regime continues to escalate its military offensives in the governorate,” the Daraa central committee reaffirmed.
Moreover, the committee explained that the regime has failed to exhibit the political will needed to reach a solution for Daraa. Damascus has rejected all proposals for halting forced displacements and military operations in the area.
The opposition committee has moved on to demand that Russia, a key backer of the regime, take over responsibility for guaranteeing that warring parties in settlement zones abide by the 2018 deal.
Even though Russian delegates and officers had assured the opposition in their meetings with negotiations committees that military escalation would come to an end, regime tanks and rockets continue to pound Daraa neighborhoods that are effectively under siege.
Activists in Daraa reported that parallel to negotiations hitting several obstacles, the 4th Armored Division shelled neighborhoods in the provincial capital on Tuesday evening.
