(Adnkronos) – The de facto leader of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is calling for the lifting of sanctions against the country and the removal of HTS from the list of terrorist organizations. “Now, after everything that has happened, the sanctions must be lifted because they were directed at the old regime. The victim and the oppressor should not be treated the same,” said the man known during the rebel advance on Damascus as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani in an interview with the BBC. Al-Sharaa also called for the removal of HTS from the lists of terrorist organizations, stressing that it is not a terrorist group and that it did not target the population or civilian areas, but that its followers consider themselves victims of the crimes of the Assad regime.
In the interview, al-Sharaa denies that he wants to transform Syria into a version of Afghanistan, a different country with different traditions, he stresses. He therefore says he believes in education for women: “We have had universities in Idlib for more than eight years,” he adds. “I believe the percentage of women in universities is over 60%.” As for the consumption of alcohol, “there are many things that I have no right to talk about because they are legal matters,” he says. There will be a “Syrian committee of legal experts to write a constitution. They will be the ones to decide. And every ruler or president will have to follow the law.”
