Chechen head Ramzan Kadyrov has called for Russia to decriminalise Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist militant group that led the armed uprising that deposed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad earlier this month, to avoid “a humanitarian catastrophe”.
Writing on his Telegram channel on Monday, Kadyrov said that the decriminalisation of HTS was a necessary step that would allow the two states to “build relations” and “solve problems” together, and suggested setting up a contact group that could include “Syrians who have lived and worked in Chechnya for a long time”.
Kadyrov also added that Chechen law enforcement officers were ready to help “patrol the streets” of Syria together with local law enforcement officers, should Vladimir Putin order them to do so.
“Any Russian presence in Syria will pursue the goals of stability and security for the people,” Kadyrov claimed, adding that Putin had “one single goal: to help the long-suffering Syrian people and to protect it from any aggression”.
Though HTS is currently on Russia’s list of terrorist and extremist organisations alongside Afghanistan’s Taliban, the State Duma approved the first reading of a bill last week that would establish a procedure allowing a court to “temporarily remove” organisations from that list, a move lawmakers have not hidden was intended to allow the government to engage with Afghanistan’s de facto leadership.
The legislation must still be approved in two more Duma readings before being voted on by the upper house, after which it will be signed into law by Putin.
As uncertainty over the Kremlin’s military presence in Syria continues, Russia has moved more than 400 of its troops from the Syrian capital to its Hmeimim air base on the country’s Mediterranean coast amid “ongoing” discussions with Syria’s transitional government about withdrawing more Russian troops from the country, The Financial Times wrote on Sunday.