 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we are going to discuss about the Syrian situation and what's happening there on the ground. To discuss the issue we have with us, Prabir Purkhais, the chief editor of NewsClick. Welcome to NewsClick, Prabir. So there are two narratives that are coming from Aleppo. One is that it has been freed, it has been liberated and another about the brutal violence that is going on there. So what is actually happening there? Well, you know, the interesting part is also the language used. On one hand, the western media, almost uniformly the entire western media is talking about the fall of Aleppo. The same time when they talk about Mosul, for instance, is the liberation of Mosul. When they talk about Pamirah, where ISIS has recaptured as they are calling it, it's recapture of Pamirah by ISIS. So each of these cases, the language seems to be very different. The second part of it, and I think that's very important to understand, that urban warfare is brutal. The other part of the so-called fall of Aleppo you must understand, there is western Aleppo and eastern Aleppo. And the eastern Aleppo is a much smaller part in population terms than western Aleppo, which has been under the control of the Assad forces right from the beginning. Syrian government has controlled western Aleppo and it has about a million people. Eastern Aleppo originally had about 300,000 people. Now how many people were left before this offensive? We really don't know. There have been various figures. There have been figures as lowest 25,000 to 90,000 by the Russians to United Nations, which has said 250,000. We really don't have any clue about the figures. But it is clear that 250,000 is a gross overestimate. About 35,000 seem to have come out initially when the pocket was half liberated. So you already saw about 35,000 come out. Six to 7,000 went to the Kurdish areas, rest came to the government areas. And this process is continued. Now it's also true that in the evacuation which has finally been agreed to with a lot of difficulty, the Russians give the eastern Aleppo rebels. And again the eastern Aleppo rebels are really the forces led by Al Qaeda today. So they were given a safe passage to Idlib area. About 7,000 to 8,000 people have been evacuated. But it is very clear and this Robert Fisk, for instance, has written that there are very, very different narratives depending on which side you are on. And it's important to realize most of the narratives of the western media really come from what is called the white helmets. And white helmets have been funded, about 100 million dollars have been funded by the British and the American government. Because if one could look at the different media and the social media, a lot of photos being circulated and the questions are being raised that do they actually belong to Aleppo or not? So I mean, what is the interest of these western media houses or the different things that you have pointed out? What is the interest that these narratives are being drawn from? It's very clear that the western narrative in Syria has been that Bashar al-Assad's government is illegal and should be overthrown. This has been by all accounts not only a civil war but a proxy war. So that's been the picture from the beginning. It's a western governments, NATO governments along with Qatar and Saudi Arabia and Turkey earlier. Turkey has come out of the equation a bit right now. These have been the ones who have instigated the war in Syria which in some sense the Syrians have been the victims. No excuses for Bashar al-Assad's government. That's really not the point but nevertheless this has been a proxy war. That's very clear. So they are interested in vilifying Bashar al-Assad as much as possible in some sense also to give strength to their original narrative that Bashar Assad is a villain and we are the good guys irrespective of the good guys being Al-Qaeda or ISIS which is what the two opponents are. You talked about the pictures that have come out. You know manufactured news is really what I would call as armed propaganda and this has been what the really the UK and the US is perfected starting with the weapons of mass destruction if you remember that this has become something which they seem to have now created in terms of being able to control the global narrative. If you look at for instance entire global media most correspondents don't exist in most parts of the world. So they get the feel from AFP, Reuters etc and which are today highly doctored. Probably it seems to be a very complicated and complex situations. A lot of parties are involved. So there's a Syrian, Russian, Iranian section then there's a ISIS section and their affiliates and this force is also. So can you just throw some light on this complexity and what actually is the geopolitics of that area currently? It's clear that Aleppo is a watershed. Aleppo was the second most important town in Syria after Damascus being the most important the capital. It was a commercial capital of Syria. So it had a bustling industry. It had a commercial zone. It has one of the oldest souks in Middle East, West Asia. In fact Damascus and Aleppo are supposed to be the two oldest urban settlements that we have in the world today which still continues as urban settlements. So Aleppo is a very important city for Syria and it's also true that in 2012 when the rebels or the Al-Qaeda forces took over where Eastern Aleppo that they dismantled the industry in fact took it to Turkey. A lot of the industrial equipment was sent to Turkey. So Aleppo has really seen the ravage of the civil war for the last four years. So it's fall to Assad's forces is certainly a very important landmark in what's developing. If we look at the map of Syria you will see the most of the settlements people who are there densely populated areas run from south west to north west up to Latakia. This is the area which is most populated. It has a significant part of the what they are calling the Alawait population as well but still majority Sunni. So this is 80% of Syria's population and major towns are here. So if you look at this belt then today the picture is apart from Idlib which is the district which is north west of Syria. Apart from this there are now pockets near Damascus, pockets near the Jordanian border, pockets near Homs and Hamas where there are still some of the Syrian rebel forces which owe allegiance to Al Qaeda and Haral Shah. So the two major elements which are there in this area and this is slowly going to be mopped up. Already there are agreements of the kind which allowed Aleppo evacuation to take place. Similar evacuation has been going on and the troops the rebel troops have been going to Idlib which is which has become the quote unquote where all of these forces are ending up in. So what's going to happen is this this entire area except Idlib is going to be slowly removed of all these forces. So this is one part. The other part of it is of course the eastern Syria which is largely desert which has a few towns Derasaur, Pamera is an old town not such a big one as of now but it has historical importance and of course Raqqa which is the supposed headquarters of ISIS. So these are the three towns which are the Derasaur is under siege. Pamera has been taken back by ISIS and you have Raqqa which is still controlled by ISIS. These are the three major towns but eastern Syria is largely unpopulated and has some oil wells but apart from that there is not much of significance economically or in terms of population to eastern Syria. So that is not their main target as far the Syrian government is concerned. Their targets has been the western part of Syria. The northern part of Syria has this additional complication. There are Kurdish pockets which is the Rojava cantons that they want to create with a contiguous border from right from contiguous pockets right from Hasqa up to Latakia that's the northern part of Syria and apart from now the area near Albab Jablus this is the part where the Turkish forces have come in the Kurds really control almost the entire part. So the question is what is the relation between Turkey and a Syrian government on one side and the other part of it is what the Kurds are going to do. De facto there seems to be an understanding between Kurds and the Syrian government still apart from the little breakdown which took place in Hasqa where there was some fighting. There seem to have decided not to fight each other and even in Aleppo there seems to have been de facto coordination between the Kurds which are really in the north of Aleppo city. They are really occupying a part of northern Aleppo city and the Bashar al-Assad government. So Syrian government forces so that is still there. Turkey after the coup and Russia's role in supporting Erdogan there seems to have been a thaw and Russia-Turkey relations. It appears that they are not going to fight each other. The Turkey-Russian relationship improved because of the coup and Turks' disillusionment or tension with the United States. Now this is a temporary scenario. What Erdogan is going to do in the long run not even Erdogan may be aware of. That is one of the imponderables in the situation. But at the moment Turkey and Russians are not fighting each other. The Syrian government has not intervened militarily beyond Aleppo city. So northern Aleppo which is where all this is happening. The narrow strip about 35 to 40 kilometers from the Turkish border up to Aleppo city. That part of it still is contested between the Kurds and the Turkish forces and Turkish supported rebel forces with the Syrian government forces really taking a back seat on that. So that area still remains mixed. Otherwise I think we are seeing a resolution of the Syrian conflict on the western side. But the northern side with Turkey and Kurds remains complex. We still do not know which way it will go. It is going to go. And the eastern side has this issue. It is linked to Iraq because here is ISIS also in control of Mosul. And also having seized Pamirah recently there is an issue over there. And the fact that the Kurds are also coming closer to Raqqa. So there is a triangle over there developing which is to be studied. But I must point out one thing. That the Pamirah when ISIS seized Pamirah again they came from Mosul. And it does not appear that the Americans did anything to hinder that. So it appears that the Americans want that the ISIS move back into Syria rather than strive and work with Syria to see how ISIS can be finished or contained. What is the way ahead for the Assad government if you look at this entire situation. And I mean there is very rare global response to it. So what is the way ahead for them? You know the Syrian government of course internationally is a small player. The bigger player is of course the United States and the NATO forces. If they keep the pot stirring, if they support the proxy war, they continue to support proxy war in various forms. They give them anti-aircraft missiles and so on. This can go on for some time. Even if it takes, it gets resolved one way which is in the Syrian government's favor. It can still go on for quite some time before it really falls you know completely under the sway of the government forces. So it really depends on the United States. The question is Trump had initially talked about having a different kind of policy for West Asia where they would not intervene. The America would not intervene militarily so much where he thought that you know there could be possibility of accommodation with Bashar al-Assad. But the kind of people he is appointing and the whole bunch of people is appointed. Most of them are really different kinds of what would be called the neocons. So they all seem to also very aggressive military policy towards West Asia. So whether it what will be Trump's policy is the big uncertainty. As we know our knowledge about Trump, what he is going to do is has been rather limited. That's all the time we have for today probirian as the things proceed will be coming back to you on such issues. Thanks a lot.