THE World Peace Council (WPC) expresses its strongest opposition to the recent developments in Syria, which led to the overthrow of the Syrian government by armed religious fundamentalist forces who have been active in the region for the last 13 years.

The WPC considers this situation a result of a co-ordinated foreign imperialist intervention, despite the fact that it is not yet clear what was agreed on by major players, and whether the result was a temporary agreement by the forces involved.

All these years, Syria, a widely secular country and society, was a theatre of operations for similar groups and armies which acted as proxies for powerful regional and international forces in their plans to control the energy resources, pipelines and spheres of influence in and around Syria.

It is not a secret that Turkey was operating militarily in the north-west of Syria, the US for its part (together with Kurdish forces) in the north-east of the country, while Israel was bombing and attacking Syrian military and civil facilities all this time.

At the same time, the Russian Federation, based on its bilateral agreement with Syria, was trying to safeguard its interests with the military bases on the Mediterranean coast, with a major role in support of the previous government.

Regardless of the details of the agreements and/or contradictions, the takeover of power by “HTS” and other armed groups (like the “SNA”), the facts constitute a negative development for the Syrian people and the peoples of the Middle East.

The WPC denounces the hypocrisy of the imperialist powers who were supposedly confronting the fundamentalist forces in the past but are now being cheered as liberators of Syria.

The US, Nato and the EU are bearing huge responsibilities for this development, along with Turkey with its Neo-Ottoman plans and Israel with its genocidal war in Palestine and Lebanon and its further plans against Iran.

We denounce particularly the incursion of Israel into Syrian territory beyond the occupied Golan Heights, about which the new regime in Syria has not said a single word.

The WPC expresses its solidarity with the Syrian people, who are entering a new and uncertain phase in their history. The WPC calls upon the members and friends of the WPC and all peace-loving forces in the region and the world to stay vigilant and to oppose the imperialist plans in the Middle East, as we have always done.