With participation of Al-Jaafari, an international conference in Britain marking passage of a decade of war on Syria

Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, Bashar Al-Jaafari, will participate on Monday, in an international conference organized by the European Center for Studies On Extremism ( EuroCSE), at the University of Cambridge, Britain, under the title: “A Decade of War on Syria – Future Paths”.

In a statement to Al-Watan newspaper, the director of the Center , Makram Khoury Makhoul, noted that this international conference is the second of its kind organized by the center after the first conference held in April 2017. He indicated that a group of international political, diplomatic, academic and media figures will participate in it, along with Al-Jaafari and members of the British House of Lords.

Makhoul pointed out that Al-Jaafari will have a keynote speech, in addition to a speech that the Russian ambassador will deliver in London. The conference will also include speeches by delegates from Iran, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, France, America and Britain.

In response to a question about the reason for inviting a Syrian official to participate in the conference, while there was no invitation at the previous conference, Makhoul said: “We had invited high-ranking officials in Syria, including Al-Jaafari in the past. But we were threatened judicially as a result of these calls. We were also subjugated  to a brutal media war almost amounted to physical attacks on us here in Britain.” He pointed out that” they wanted to keep the mouths shut and to impose a comprehensive academic cover that is hostile to Syria. “

“Now there is a tragic occasion, which is the passage of a decade of war on Syria,” he noted, “Despite the boycott and sanctions that are still imposed on Syria, but we notice that there is a little bit change. The  official position of the British state is still negative with regard to Syria, but there is a gradual shift in decision-making. This gradual decline in hostility must be recognized. This negative trend fell from the great hostility that we witnessed four years ago.”

Since the outbreak of the war on Syria in 2011, the closure of the British embassy in Damascus and the Syrian embassy in London, and the imposition of a North Atlantic blockade on Syria, this is the first time in which a Syrian official will participate in a conference organized by an academic center in Cambridge – Britain.|

Inas Abdulkareem