Defected senior officer proposes Syrian military council
RAQQA, Syria (North Press) – After 12 years out of sight, defected Brigadier General Manaf Tlass, the cousin of former Syrian government Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass, announced on Friday, in a brief message, a project to form a Syrian Military Council.
Tlass said in a statement obtained by North Press, “The military council emerged from the will of Syrians, and it will not be anything other than a Syrian national project, far from any form of affiliation or proxy of any party, whether international or regional.”
Tlass, defected in 2012 and has not participated in any political or military formations since then, as the Syrian opposition has failed to endorse him, given that his father, Mustafa Tlass, was the defense minister during the reign of Hafez al-Assad and his son, current Syrian president, Bashar.
Tlass believes that the military council is an effort to end the suffering of Syrians and that the “revolution needs entities and leaders who are always ready to sacrifice and align with the aspirations of the Syrian people, not to be a burden on them.”
The idea of forming a military council was proposed more than two years ago and was first presented by opposition figures within the 2021 Moscow and 2015 Cairo platforms, which proposed forming a military council during a transitional period agreed upon to implement UN Resolution 2254.
According to Tlass’ statement, the military council includes three parties: retired officers who served during Hafez al-Assad’s reign, officers who are still in service, and defected officers who did not participate in the formations of the conflicting factions. Calls were made in 2021 to hand over the responsibility of forming the military council to Manaf Tlass.
The provisions of UN Resolution 2254 include the formation of a transitional governance body, under the supervision of the United Nations. Political approaches have so far failed to reach a political solution that satisfies all Syrian parties.
The project comes amid increasing Arab overtures to Damascus, the launch of a political initiative for the Syrian crisis by the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, and meetings of Syrian opposition platforms.