PHOTO: A crowd in eastern Aleppo city waits for removal on Thursday afternoon
With the first removals from Syria’s largest city Aleppo underway, I spoke with BBC Radio 5 Live on Thursday night about what may happen next in the conflict.
The chat focused on two alternative possibilities. Will Russia and Iran continue to support President Assad’s ambition to crush the opposition? Or will Moscow now accept a short-term partition, with the opposition and rebels holding Idlib Province and joining up with Turkey in part of Aleppo Province, the regime secure in most of Syria’s cities, and the Kurds in the northeast?
It concluded with a brief but pointed comparison: as the US has been pushed to the sidelines, European countries such as Britain may be trying to distance Russia from Assad.
