 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we are going to be talking about the recent ceasefire agreement in Syria and for that we have Prabir Purkayastha, Editor-in-Chief NewsClick. So Prabir, if you could tell us what is different about this ceasefire agreement than the previous one, seeing how they failed the previous ceasefires. Well, you are right. The previous ceasefire agreement generally ended up not being successful. They held for some time, maybe a few days, sometimes a couple of weeks, but really didn't hold. And what is different this time is an important question. I think the first and the most important part is it has been worked out without the United States. This is really an agreement which is being done between Turkey, Russia, Syria and Iran. In fact, Syria was not directly a participant in the discussion. It was really Iran, Russia and Turkey which negotiated the ceasefire with of course both the sides. Clearly, Al Qaeda-Affliate, what is used to be Jabhat al-Nusrah, now Fatah al-Sham, is not a part of the agreement. Neither is ISIS. This is what Russians as well as the Iranians and the Syrians have said. Interestingly enough, the rebels have said no, they should be a part of this agreement. So there is already a point of discord whether this agreement covers the rebels as well as Al Qaeda forces and what are we called rebels and whether it does not. So that's an open question. So there is a possibility this will not hold. But the important part I think is that this time it's Turkey which has really changed sides. Earlier it used to be with the Western powers. It used to be Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Gulf Emirates, all these Gulf states. So there is a change of the part of the correlation of forces outside Syria as it were which has directly influenced Syria because this is in some sense a proxy war. It's a war which has been done against Bashar al-Assad's government by a whole range of forces including NATO powers as well as the local Gulf monarchies which have been behind this with of course also Israel support. So the fact that Turkey has changed is I think the significant part of it. Will the ceasefire hold? Open question. So what are the areas do you think where the ceasefire will hold and where all it can feel? Well, I think it's a there are four distinct areas we can talk about in terms of shall we say the larger strategic moves in Syria. One is near Damascus the southwest part of Syria. In that part it does appear that the major players are the so-called free Syrian army rebels and Al Qaeda is not as strong as it is in other areas or ISIS is not as strong as it is in other areas. So this is an area which looks like could be some could be a place where the ceasefire would hold and the rebels would actually lay down their arms come into some kind of strategic understanding with the Syrian government and would slowly be in that sense assimilated in some way into a new setup. So there is a possibility in these areas that you will actually have the ceasefire hold. Now there are pockets where ISIS is there Al Qaeda is there and so on and there are pockets which have been independent rebel areas which have been very close to Saudis and so on. But at the same time given the turn of events after Aleppo's fall I think they're all beginning to recognize that the Saudi government is here to stay it's not going to fall and if it doesn't fall then they can go on fighting but they're not really going to achieve anything and at the same time with the Syrian air force the Russian air force having control over the skies increasingly the turn of the battle is turning against them. So I think that's an area where you likely to see some resolution. Eastern Syria that's where the ISIS is in control which is largely desert this is really going to see how the Russians Americans play this among themselves because Americans have now backed the Iraqis in Mosul which is their joining area to the eastern eastern part of Syria. So what happens in Mosul what happens in Raqqa what happens in Deir Ezzor are in some sense linked because this is where the ISIS really holds sway and this is the area where it's continued to shrink but ISIS still is powerful over there. The other part of it and I'll come to the most difficult part later other part of it is northern Aleppo what's the whole northern belt of Syria where the Kurds and the Turks as well as Syrian government and the ISIS are in battle in different ways and in this the Turkish interest at the moment seems to be north of Aleppo or northern part of the governorate that part of it if we look it does appear that Turkey and Russia have reached some agreement among themselves that this part Turkey would and its rebel allies would hold sway and ISIS will be eliminated from that part and the same time the Kurdish northern part which if that part falls also the Kurds become one contiguous area which is what they call the Rojava state or Rojava some entity called Rojava that will not take place because the Kurds then would not have a contiguous area. So this is the this is something which is between the Kurds Turks and the Syrian government that is being worked out it seems by which the status quo would see Turks play some role in northern Aleppo. The last and the most difficult is where the so-called rebel forces are mixed with Al Qaeda very closely it has a Harald Sham which is really what we call Al Qaeda light and that's again once the Sharia base state very close to what the ideology of the Al Qaeda really is. So Harald Sham and Al Qaeda are the leading military force in Idlib which is the last bastion of the rebels so to say in northwest of Aleppo and that area is where we will likely to see that the so-called true ceasefire really break down. No ceasefire ever eastern is Syria where the ISIS is there everybody agrees that there is no ceasefire there northern Aleppo yes a ceasefire which can hold southwestern Syria where ceasefire can hold it includes Homs Hama townships and so on where slowly the rebels would lay down arms and get assimilated and Idlib is the place where it appears the ceasefire will not hold and we're likely to see further war continuing over there. So you mentioned that this is the first time that US has not been part of the ceasefire agreement so what do you think the Americas role would be in the future of Syria? That's a very important question I think that's the biggest change that we are seeing right now that till now the Western powers including the United States which is of course the leader of the Western block has called the shots whether it's a UN negotiations the negotiations that were carried out earlier in Saudi Arabia with all the parties it's really the West which is called the shots and has been and tried at least to put everybody together as it appeared in which one of the major demands used to be Bashar al-Assad has to go that's how most of these negotiations really did not bear any fruit. The first time that you see the United States has virtually lost its place in the negotiations for ceasefire and so it does it does seem that it is increasingly becoming irrelevant in the civil war that is going on or the proxy war in Syria. Now that is a significant change from whatever we have seen in the past I don't think it's possible for the United States to be or the West to be completely squeezed out of Syria but the simple fact that they are players they are supplying arms they have supplied in the past what are called manpads they have supplied anti-tag missiles which are in the control of ISIS large part of it is followed to ISIS or to Al Qaeda forces so they will still remain spoilers their ability to spoil anything that happens the region is there including as we knew we know now earlier that ISIS itself was partly the product of the American policies either of benign neglect letting it happen or of active connivance so this is being the US policies in the region to keep it fragmented break it up not have a continuous so-called Shia axis which is Iran Iraq Syria and Hezbollah so all of these policies now would see the United States is not a part of what is going to happen in Syria in terms of an active direction but nevertheless could be a spoiler and if it acts as a spoiler then it can keep the civil war or the the current war that is going on also for some time by neither not coming out against ISIS beyond Iraq border or for instance supplying still through Saudi Arabia through Qatar other Gulf states arms to Al Qaeda forces and its allies in the name of supporting the so-called free Syrian army so the US role would could also could also be that of not wanting any peace in Syria not even talking about it but instead wanting the war to continue looking at Israel's interests looking at US your strategic interest that could be a possible line that it could take up under Trump will this line change we really don't know this has been Obama's position this has been some in some sense the continuity of the West position in West Asia break up the countries particularly those that pose a threat to Israel so we really have to see whether Trump would change policies or he would be unpredictable to the extent of either wanting peace or more war we really don't know the last point is I think it also depends a lot on Turkey US relationship now it's also clear that the coup attempt against Eddogan was seen by Eddogan and the AKP in Turkey as a threat posed by the United States to the kind of policies they were building so they have turned against NATO for policies they have really broken in the US right now in foreign policy terms and they have therefore tried to work out some orders we went in with Russia with Saudi Arabia with Syria Syrian government which until very recently and even after their so-called re-approach ma with Russia they have been talking about that Bashar al-Assad should go so they have really changed their fundamental position but it does appear that they have broken at least significantly on the question of Syria with the United States and with NATO will that also last will they also come back again to the NATO fold will the break with Russia again it's a big imponderable because at the moment Eddogan is a bit like Trump we do not know which way he's going to swing thank you Pravee for talking with us on this topic and we will have more interviews as it proceeds this is all the time we have a news click thank you for joining us