A dialogue before the coast burned
Published 10 October 2026
External conditions were changing too. On February 24, the European Union suspended major measures affecting energy, transport and finance, eased bank restrictions and loosened limits concerning the central bank. The purpose was to support reconstruction and humanitarian activity. Easing sanctions changed the conditions under which Damascus operated; it did not certify domestic conduct. The authorities needed money and trade while assembling institutions. Europe gave them room to act before they had demonstrated how they would protect every community. Diplomatic encouragement and domestic trust were distinct resources. The government could accumulate the former while still needing to earn the latter through security and lawful administration. Anadolu Agency, December 7, updated December 9, 2025
Local consultations preceded a national dialogue conference on February 25. Its final statement called for unity, sovereignty, rights, freedom of expression, women's rights and participation by all parts of society. The commission described it as non-binding. Agreement on aspirations did not establish an enforceable distribution of power. A participant might support unity without consenting to every authority the presidency would receive. The conference gave transition a vocabulary beyond military victory. It did not decide how that vocabulary would survive in institutions being designed by the victors, or how a citizen could enforce participation against an executive whose power was already being consolidated. UN Syria Commission, A/HRC/59/CRP.4, August 11, 2025
The commission's account of growing revenge attacks identified uncertainty about justice as part of the danger. Survivors could doubt that lawful accountability would arrive, while former personnel feared punishment unrelated to individual responsibility. The vacuum linked those anxieties to opportunities for force. Justice and security were not separate concerns: credible prosecution could reduce vengeance's appeal, and protection could enable suspects and witnesses to enter a lawful process. Their absence encouraged people to settle claims themselves. The replacement of Assad's system was unfinished at precisely the moment it needed to prevent men from turning the former system's crimes into grounds for committing new ones. UN Syria Commission, A/HRC/59/CRP.4, August 11, 2025
Before March 6, deployment in Latakia and Tartus reportedly consisted of a few hundred security personnel and fewer than two thousand allied Defence Ministry forces. Settlement centres were processing large numbers while armed supporters of the old government remained active. The disparity explained part of the region's vulnerability. Damascus had ministries, but not a dense apparatus of protection wherever former loyalties, weapons and fear remained intertwined. The state could demand exclusive control of force without possessing the staff to exercise it continuously. A confrontation in a place with little reliable government presence could require reinforcements drawn from groups whose integration and discipline were still incomplete. UN Syria Commission, A/HRC/59/CRP.4, August 11, 2025
Alawi civilians were exposed to collective suspicion because of the former government's association with their community. Individual responsibility varied enormously. The commission described structural sectarianism, fragmentation and grievance as background to retaliation, without turning identity into evidence of crime. Religion could not establish employment in an intelligence branch, much less responsibility for a particular act. The state's test was whether it could maintain that distinction when armed men demanded revenge. Its caretaker leaders had publicly rejected vengeance as a basis for building the country and promised protection without ethnic or religious discrimination. Their language supplied a standard. The security institutions would have to demonstrate whether it held under pressure. UN Syria Commission, A/HRC/59/CRP.4, August 11, 2025