Prisoner swaps will continue in Syria: Russian envoy
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Russia expects that work on prisoner swaps in Syria will continue effectively, Russian Special Presidential Envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentyev said on Saturday.
“We deem the exchange of detained persons, prisoners, and the search for the missing as a very important issue, though some are looking at this through a different lens,” said Lavrentyev after the Astana 16 meeting in the Kazakh capital, Nur-Sultan.
“We believe that this is a key issue, with international organizations also joining it,” according to the Russian TASS Agency.
“This work will be continued, and we expect that we will continue work to facilitate the release of the persons who their families are waiting for,” Lavrentyev stressed.
He also praised the enormous work done by the working group on prisoner and refugee release, exchange of the bodies of those killed, and the search for the missing in Syria, that functions within the framework of the Astana process.
“It seems to some that the swap we have seen recently — five for five — means nothing, this is few. But we must all realize that the prisoner swap is a very painstaking, difficult, and very delicate process, with human lives at stake,” Lavrentyev emphasized.
On July 2, a prisoner exchange took place between the Syrian National Army and the Syrian government forces, at the Abu al-Zandin crossing in al-Bab area, east of Aleppo.
In the prisoner swap, the oppositiom Syrian National Army released five members of the government forces, in exchange for the latter releasing five members in eastern Aleppo.
The exchange was mediated by the Russian Ministry of Defense, and it is the fifth process within an agreement with the Turkish side and the Syrian government, in the presence of representatives of the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
However, Yasser Abdulrahim, a leader in the Sham Legion and a member of the Syrian opposition delegation to the Astana talks on Syria, said that “exchanging five prisoners from the opposition for five detainees in the regime’s custody is an unfair process.”
“The regime has detainees and the opposition has prisoners of war, so the situation is different,” he added.
The opposition delegation discussed with a delegation from the International Committee of the Red Cross, on the margin of the 16th round of the Astana meetings, which were held last Wednesday and Thursday, the issue of detainees and the disappeared, whose number exceeds 400,000, Abdulrahim stressed.
“The Assad regime denies having the detainees in prisons. We asked to know their fate, release them, and increase the activities of the Red Cross to provide aid to the Syrians,” he added.
The International Committee of the Red Cross informed the opposition delegation that “it was not possible to visit prisons because the regime does not allow it,” Abdulrahim said.