Syria’s de facto leader reiterated his pledge to deliver a democratic political transition as talks on the country’s future opened.
Ahmed al-Sharaa urged his countrymen to unite and pledged to establish a transitional justice body, as he welcomed participants of a national dialogue aimed at guiding the country’s political transition following years of civil war and the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad.
He also said the state will hold a monopoly on weapons, a key issue in a country in which numerous armed groups have spent recent years fighting.
The meeting in the country’s capital Damascus was billed by al-Sharaa and his ruling Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) as a chief milestone to a democratic and inclusive transition and state reconstruction. However, there is concern that the process is being rushed.
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