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© Reuters. Members of the Algerian rescue team and Syrian army soldiers search for survivors at the site of a damaged building, in the aftermath of the earthquake in Aleppo, Syria February 8, 2023. REUTERS/Firas Makdesi
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By Tom Perry and Timour Azhari
BEIRUT (Reuters) – President Bashar al-Assad is seeking political advantage from an earthquake that has devastated large parts of Syria and Turkey, pressing for foreign aid to be delivered through his territory as he aims to chip away at his international isolation, analysts say.
Amid an outpouring of sympathy for the Syrians hit by the earthquake, Damascus has seized the moment to reiterate its long-standing demand for aid to be coordinated with his government, shunned by the West since Syria’s war began in 2011.
Western powers have shown no sign they are ready to meet that demand or re-engage with Assad, but his hand has been strengthened by difficulties facing cross-border aid flows into Syria’s rebel-held northwest from Turkey.
The aid flows, critical to 4 million people in the area, have been temporarily halted since the earthquake, although a U.N. official expressed hope they could resume on Thursday. Damascus has long said aid to the rebel enclave in the north should go via Syria not across the Turkish border.
“Clearly there is some kind of opportunity in this crisis for Assad, for him to show ‘you need to work with me or through me’,” said Aron Lund, a Syria expert at the Century Foundation.
“If he is smart he would facilitate aid to areas outside his control and get a chance to look like a responsible actor, but the regime is very stubborn.”
The West has long shunned Assad, citing his government’s brutality during more than 11 years of civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, uprooted more than half the population, and forced millions abroad as refugees.
But the frontlines have been frozen for years and Assad, backed by Russia and Iran, controls the biggest part of the fractured country.
The U.S. State Department has shot down the suggestion that the earthquake could be an opportunity for Washington to reach out to Damascus, saying it will still provide aid to Syrians in government-held areas via NGOs on the ground not the government.
“It would be quite ironic, if not even counterproductive, for us to reach out to a government that has brutalised its people over the course of a dozen years now – gassing them, slaughtering them, being responsible for much of the…
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