ATHENS (AFP): Greece hopes that the fall of President Bashar al-Assad will encourage Syrian refugees in Europe to return home “in total safety”, the government spokesman said on Monday.
Many of the hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees who have settled in the European Union since fleeing the civil war that erupted in 2011, have passed through Greece on their way to other countries.
More than 15,000 Syrians have work permits in Greece, according to the migration ministry.
Government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis told journalists that the fall of Assad should lead to “peace in the country and a harmonious transition of power to a legitimate democratic government”.
Such a democratic transition “should open the return path in total safety back to their homes for Syrian refugees”, he said.
That should “mark the end of the flux of refugees from this country”, Marinakis said.
Greece was “cautiously optimistic” about Syria’s future, said Marinakis.
While he hailed “the fall of the authoritarian Assad regime”, he did not comment on the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group that led the rebel push on Damascus but which is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Western governments and the European Union.
Marinakis’s comments came hot on the heels of Germany and Austria announcing they were suspending new asylum applications from Syrians. Sweden and France said they would follow.
