Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa acknowledged Thursday that protesters had “legitimate demands,” AFP reported, citing state media, after thousands demonstrated against violence targeting the country’s Alawite minority.
The demonstrations earlier this week in several coastal cities - the Alawite heartland - were the largest by the community since the overthrow of former President Bashar al-Assad last year. Assad himself was an Alawite, and parts of the minority prospered under his rule.
Since Assad’s fall, anti-Alawite violence has surged, including the killing of more than 1,700 people in coastal Syria in March. The latest protests followed unrest in Homs, triggered by the murder of a Sunni Bedouin couple blamed on Alawites, with sectarian graffiti found at the scene.
Speaking in a phone call with the governor of Latakia, Sharaa said, “We have observed that there are many legitimate popular demands, although some are politically motivated, to put it politely.”
Sharaa, whose Islamist rebels led Assad’s overthrow last December, added his government was “fully prepared to listen to all the demands and to seriously consider them.”
His rise has unsettled Syria’s minorities, with fears heightened by violence against Alawites and clashes between Sunni Bedouin and Druze earlier this year. “National unity is a fundamental pillar and indispensable,” Sharaa said. “The time has now come to put an end to divisions sown in the minds of Syrians for over sixty years.”
From the Baath Party coup in 1963 until Assad’s fall last year, Syria was ruled by Alawites. Since taking power, Sharaa has pledged to protect minority rights while insisting on a strong centralized state. He rejected Kurdish autonomy demands and sought to enforce authority in Druze-majority Sweida, sparking clashes and Israeli strikes.
Sharaa stressed Syria’s coast was a priority but warned it “cannot be governed by an independent authority, isolated from the rest of the regions” because “a Syria without access to the sea would lose a fundamental part of its strategic and economic strength.”