Egypt FM phones counterparts of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, UAE for military escalation in Syria

CAIRO - 5 December 2024: Minister of Foreign Affairs Badr Abdelatty made a series of phone calls with the foreign ministers of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and the UAE to discuss developments in Syria, amid the fierce fighting between the Syrian regime military forces and the opposition armed groups in northwestern Syria. 

The phone calls were made upon directives given by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Thursday.

Abdelatty stressed Egypt's firm support for the Syrian state and the importance of respecting its sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity

The minister also emphasized the importance of protecting civilians in Syria and stressed the need for both regional and international efforts to unite in order to halt the escalation, and prevent it from spiraling out of control and threatening regional and global security and stability.

The opposition armed forces, led by the Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), launched sudden attacks against the Syrian regime forces and their allies in the cities of Idlib and Aleppo on November 27, 2024, and managed to completely control them, except in some small villages run by the Kurds. In response, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s forces, with the help of the Russian airplanes, bombed places in the two cities. 

The two fighting parties have been in fierce fighting outside Hama, one of the largest Syrian cities and located in the center of the country, since November 30. It is still not clear how the battle in Hama will end. 

The ongoing fight led to the killing of 727 people, including 111 civilians and 311 from “Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham”, 60 from the Turkey-backed National Army factions, and 220 members of the regime forces, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Thursday.