Spotlight: Damascus attempts to lure rebels into settlements as truce largely holds

The Syrian government is apparently working on luring the rebels into settlements, taking advantage of the recent truce, analysts say.

At first, the cessation of hostilities, which has been in place since the weekend, has excluded the Islamic State (IS) group and the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front.

The exclusion came against the backdrop of the UN resolution, which designated the aforementioned groups as terrorists, given the atrocities each of them have committed during the nearly five-year-conflict.

With the IS and Nusra are out of the political settlement picture, the Syrian government and nearly 130 rebel groups have agreed to the cease-fire, which was proposed and agreed upon by Russia and the United States.

Four days into the cessation of hostilities, the truce is largely holding, despite few breaches here and there.

Maher Ihsan, a Syrian political researcher, believes the rebels on ground, which are not linked to either Nusra or IS, have faced several options; either to continue the battles, and in this way they will be put on the same page with the IS and Nusra, or to abide by the plan and be part of any future settlement.

With that in hand, Damascus has made several moves recently to try to lure the committed rebels into embarking on a reconciliations, he said.

Opposition activists said the Syrian warplanes have dropped leaflets on rebel-held areas in several parts of the country, urging the rebels reconcile with the government and kick out the foreign militants.

Also, President Bashar al-Assad promised "full amnesty" to rebels who would give up their arms.

In an interview with ta German TV aired Tuesday, Assad offered a "return to civilian life" to opposition fighters who would abandon their weapons.

"The most important thing for me, legally and constitutionally," he said, was "that you're not allowed, as a citizen, to hold machine guns and hurt people or properties."

"This is the only thing that we ask. We don't ask for anything. As I said, we give them full amnesty," he said.

While describing the on-going truce in his country as a glimmer of hope, the president said his troops have refrained from retaliating to the rebels breaches.

"We will do our part so that the whole thing works," adding that "we have refrained ourselves from retaliating in order to give (a) chance for the agreement to survive,"he noted.

Meanwhile, the president "That's what we can do, but at the end everything has a limit. It depends on the other side," Assad said, adding that "the terrorists have breached the deal from the first day. We as the Syrian army are refraining from responding in order to give a chance to sustain the agreement."

Last month, Assad issued a presidential pardon covering military crimes, and offering amnesty to draft dodgers.

In another sign of the government's desire to entice the rebels, Syria's Minister of National Reconciliation Ali Haidar said in a televised interview on Tuesday that the rebel can lay down their arms and return to their normal lives, or keep their weapons and fight alongside the Syrian army against the IS and Nusra.

Earlier in the day, state news agency SANA said 80 men, involved in the insurgency against the government, turned themselves in to take advantage of the government's offer to clear the records of those who surrender themselves and their weapons and abandon the insurgency.

In the southern province of Daraa, SANA said the authorities in Daraa on Monday cleared the criminal records of as many as 1200 rebels who abandoned their insurgency and turned themselves in.

It said the rebels were from the town of Ibta.

Late last month, the authorities in Daraa appealed to the people who have held arms in Daraa, mainly in Ibta to lay down their weapons in exchange of clearing their records.

While the government's bid to lure the rebels is working on a small scale now, analysts expect such attempts to succeed on a larger scope, as the current truce in the country is seen as a base for the political solution, during which reconciliation between warring side will be an essential one.

Anas Joudeh, a Syrian opposition figure, told Xinhua in a recent interview that the solution in Syria will be based on "no winner, no loser."

He also reads Assad's decree to hold parliamentarian elections in April as a "clear political message to the world that the Syrian state will continue to exist."

SANA said Tuesday that the number of candidates who submitted their applications for the parliamentary elections has reached at 8681 in several Syrian cities since last week. Enditem