The announcement that Syria has achieved wheat self-sufficiency for the first time since 2010, with the Syrian Grain Establishment receiving 2.7 million tons of wheat, marks a significant milestone for the nation’s food security. However, a rigorous assessment of this achievement requires not only an evaluation of total tonnage but also a detailed compositional breakdown of the harvest, specifically, the proportions of soft (Triticum aestivum) and durum (Triticum durum) wheat (also known as hard wheat), as this directly determines the crop’s functional utility for domestic consumption, particularly for Arabic bread production.

The stakes are real: Syria’s wheat import requirement for the 2025/26 marketing year had been forecast at around 3 million tons, which at recent global prices of roughly USD 220 per ton would imply an import bill in the high hundreds of millions of dollars, the bill this year’s harvest is intended to avoid.

A note on terminology before proceeding: the Grain Establishment’s self-sufficiency benchmark, 2.55 million tons, is narrower than Syria’s total wheat requirement, and this is not a one-off figure. The Grain Establishment cited essentially the same 2.5 million-ton “consumption” benchmark a full year earlier, in September 2025, and Syria’s Central Bureau of Statistics has historically described pre-war average local consumption the same way: roughly 2.5 million tons, against production exceeding 4 million tons and an export surplus of 1.2–1.5 million tons.

Set against this, a Ministry of Agriculture official put Syria’s total annual wheat requirement closer to 4 million tons in 2026, a figure that closely echoes an FAO/GIEWS estimate from as far back as 1999, which put domestic wheat requirements at 3.8 million tons. The consistency of both figures across nearly three decades suggests the roughly 1.3–1.5 million-ton gap between them is a real, structural feature of Syrian wheat demand likely taking the form of non-bread uses such as seed stock, animal feed, and bulgur production. An independent estimate, built from an FAO ration standard of 275 grams of flour per person per day scaled to Syria’s population and converted to wheat-equivalent at typical extraction rates, puts minimum bread-wheat need in the range of 2.6–3.1 million tons, consistent with, if slightly above, the 2.55-million-ton figure. This triangulation supports treating the 2.55-million-ton benchmark primarily as a bread-wheat proxy in the analysis that follows, though it remains an assumption rather than an officially confirmed figure.

Thus, based on available procurement data up to mid-July 2026, which recorded a total intake of 2,076,754 tons, the partial harvest was distributed as follows:

• Soft wheat: 1,129,462 tons (54.4%)

• Durum (hard) wheat: 947,293 tons (45.6%)

If these same proportions are applied to the final reported total of 2.7 million tons (acknowledging that the definitive breakdown for the full amount has not yet been officially published), the estimated breakdown would be approximately:

• Soft wheat: ~1.469 million tons (54.4%)

• Durum wheat: ~1.231 million tons (45.6%)

The functional distinction between these two wheat classes is critical, as Syria‘s primary food staple—Arabic flatbread—requires a specific flour blend. Based on Syrian milling practices, Syrian flour blending for Arabic bread in Syria typically comprises approximately 75–80% soft wheat and 20–25% durum wheat. Without going into too many details, this ratio is designed to optimize dough strength, elasticity, and high-temperature baking performance. For the purpose of this analysis, a conservative blend of 80% soft wheat and 20% durum wheat is assumed.

Based on the above figures, a significant structural imbalance is evident. Given the total wheat required to meet the national annual consumption requirement of 2.55 million tons of wheat, and applying the 80/20 blending specification, wheat needs would stand at :

• Required soft wheat: 2.55 × 0.80 = ~2.04 million tons

• Required durum wheat: 2.55 × 0.20 = ~0.51 million tons

Comparing this with the estimated actual production based on the 54.4/45.6 split:

• Actual soft wheat available: ~1.47 million tons

• Actual durum wheat available: ~1.23 million tons

This yields the following deficits and surpluses:

• Soft wheat shortfall: 2.04 − 1.47 = ~0.57 million tons (roughly 570,000 tons)

• Durum wheat surplus: 1.23 − 0.51 = ~0.72 million tons (roughly 720,000 tons)

Turning to the harvest composition itself, while the 2.7-million-ton total does exceed the Grain Establishment’s 2.55-million-ton benchmark, aggregate sufficiency masks a compositional imbalance. The harvest contains a disproportionately high share of durum wheat and an insufficient share of soft wheat to meet the standard Arabic-bread milling specification, even though total volume clears the government’s headline benchmark.

In practical terms, this composition points in two directions at once: Syria’s durum surplus is a potential export opportunity, although the estimated surplus should be treated as a gross quantity rather than a directly exportable volume, since the final grain-quality, grade, moisture, and other quality characteristics of the full crop have not yet been publicly verified. Meanwhile, its soft wheat shortfall means the country will likely still need to import wheat for bread, even in a year officially declared self-sufficient. Both implications are explored in detail below.

Global Production Context and the Scarcity of Durum Wheat

To fully appreciate the strategic significance of Syria‘s durum wheat production, it is essential to situate it within the broader context of global wheat output. Worldwide wheat production is overwhelmingly dominated by soft wheat (Triticum aestivum), which accounts for approximately 95% of global production. Durum wheat (Triticum durum), by contrast, constitutes only the remaining 5% of global wheat output. Some estimates place the durum share slightly higher, at approximately 5–6% of total production and less than 10% of cultivated area. Regardless of the precise figure, the fundamental reality remains: durum wheat is a minority crop on the global stage, representing less than 10% of total wheat production.

This scarcity is a primary driver of the persistent price premium that durum wheat commands over soft wheat in international commodity markets. The limited global supply, combined with the specific and non-substitutable end-uses of durum, underpins its higher valuation. On Euronext (the only exchange with a liquid durum futures contract), European Durum Wheat futures (September 2026 delivery) settled at EUR 290 (about USD 335) per ton in August 2026, against approximately EUR 229 (about USD 265) per ton for the equivalent Euronext Milling Wheat (soft wheat) contract, a premium of roughly USD 70 per ton. This is consistent with the physical market: in March 2026, Tunisia’s state grain agency purchased soft wheat at approximately USD 272 per ton (cost and freight (C&F)) and durum at approximately USD 334 per ton (C&F) in the same international tender, a durum premium of nearly USD 62 per ton.

Beyond the scarcity factor, the price premium of durum wheat is also rooted in its unique technological and culinary properties, which render it irreplaceable for a range of food products. Durum wheat possesses a distinct protein composition that gives it exceptional firmness, elasticity, and cooking stability. These properties make durum the essential raw material for:

• Pasta (spaghetti, macaroni, penne, and other extruded products), where its high protein content and firm texture are indispensable.

• Couscous, a staple across North Africa and the Levant, requires durum semolina for its characteristic granular texture and ability to absorb flavors without disintegrating.

• Bulgur, a cracked wheat product widely used in Middle Eastern cuisine, is where durum's firmness and nutty flavor are preferred.

• Specialty flatbreads in the Middle East and North Africa use durum, either pure or blended, to achieve the desired texture and structure.

Critically, soft wheat cannot substitute for durum in these applications. Pasta made from soft wheat lacks the firmness, yellow color, and cooking quality that consumers expect. Couscous produced from soft wheat fails to achieve the proper granularity and tends to become mushy during cooking. The technological specificity of durum wheat means that for these product categories, there is no viable alternative. This non-substitutability further reinforces durum‘s strategic value and its elevated position in global markets.

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Syria as a Durum Wheat Producer: Historical Context and Strategic Positioning

Over the years, with available governorate-level data (2011–2025), Syria’s durum share has consistently exceeded half of total wheat production, ranging from roughly 53% to 65%. The 2026 harvest’s 45.6% durum share falls below this entire historical range, with the reasons for this large year-on-year drop remaining unclear.

Based on figures from the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform (MAAR), Syria’s wheat production held above 4 million tons a year through most of the 2002–2007 period, peaking at 4.93 million tons in 2006, when the country remained self-sufficient and a net exporter. That run broke sharply in 2008, when frost and a severe spring drought cut production to 2.14 million tons, roughly half the prior year’s crop. Production partially recovered through 2009–2013, but never returned to the pre-2008 peak, averaging closer to 3.4 million tons even before the war’s effects compounded the underlying climate volatility. From 2014 onward, output became substantially more erratic, swinging between lows near 1.1–1.2 million tons (2018, 2022) and highs above 3 million tons (2019, 2023). This volatility culminated in 2025’s collapse to 934,000 tons, the worst year on record, before the sharp 2026 rebound.

The production data underscore why irrigated capacity functions as a buffer against Syria’s chronic rainfed volatility. Across the 21 years of complete data from 2002 to 2023, in the 13 years when non-irrigated yield fell from the prior year, it did so by an average of roughly 35%, while irrigated yield, in those same years, fell by an average of only about 7%, and in four of the thirteen years actually rose despite the rainfed collapse (see charts below).

The pattern is starkest in Syria’s worst individual drought years: in 2008, non-irrigated yield fell 79% year-over-year against a 32% decline in irrigated yield; in 2021, non-irrigated yield fell 84% against an 18% irrigated decline; and in 2018, non-irrigated yield fell 71% while irrigated yield was essentially flat. Irrigated wheat has not been immune to Syria’s droughts, but it has consistently absorbed a fraction of the damage that rainfed cultivation sustains in the same year — a resilience gap of roughly five to one across the full series.

Beyond self-sufficiency, Syria was also a net exporter of wheat. The country’s durum wheat was competitive in international markets, and Syria’s position in the world wheat trade was growing. UN Comtrade data (see chart below) traces the shape of this trajectory precisely: durum exports were negligible in 2000, seemingly worth just USD 770 for a token 4.3 tons, before climbing rapidly to USD 116.7 million (608,091 tons) by 2002 and peaking in 2007 at USD 237.8 million for 961,645 tons, implying an average export price of roughly USD 247 per ton that year. That peak coincided with the onset of the 2008 drought, and exports collapsed the following year to USD 21 million on just 59,147 tons, even as the implied per-ton price rose to around USD 356, consistent with a tighter domestic crop pushing up the value of what little was still shipped abroad, against the backdrop of the 2007–08 global food price spike.

A brief partial recovery followed in 2010 (USD 6.9 million, 29,085 tons), but by 2011, as the war began, Syrian durum exports had fallen to USD 761, effectively zero, a complete reversal of the trade position built up over the preceding decade.

Strategic Implications of the Durum Surplus

The compositional imbalance identified in the 2026 harvest—a surplus of approximately 720,000 tons of durum wheat alongside a deficit of approximately 570,000 tons of soft wheat—means that Syria’s wheat mix remains structurally misaligned with its own consumption needs, aggregate self-sufficiency notwithstanding. The government’s headline claim is accurate on its own narrow terms: 2.7 million tons does exceed the 2.55-million-ton benchmark, but it describes volume, not composition. On that basis, Syria has not achieved the kind of self-sufficiency that reduces its dependence on trade; it has reproduced the same structural pattern that has defined Syrian wheat production for decades.

On the one hand, the durum surplus cannot be fully utilized in the standard Arabic bread flour blend without compromising product quality. Substituting durum for soft wheat beyond the 20–25% threshold would alter the dough’s properties, potentially affecting consumer acceptability. It should also be noted that the 720,000-ton figure, calculated only against the bread-flour blend requirement, is an upper bound rather than a precise net-exportable volume, since it does not separately account for domestic durum demand from bulgur and pasta production, meaning the true exportable surplus likely sits somewhat below 720,000 tons.

On the other hand, durum wheat’s price premium over soft wheat, established earlier, means this is not a new problem for Syria, nor an unmanageable one. Pre-war Syrian agriculture already lived with this dynamic as the country’s standing trade pattern: since Syria produces a higher ratio of hard to soft wheat than is ideal for bread-making, and hard wheat commands a higher price internationally, the country would export hard wheat in years of surplus and import soft wheat in years of deficit. The 2026 harvest fits this pattern exactly. Today, then, the question is whether Syria can afford to resolve this imbalance through trade, as it did routinely before the war.

At current international prices of approximately USD 330–335 per ton for durum, the surplus could yield export revenues in the range of USD 238–241 million; revenue that could be strategically deployed to finance the roughly USD 151–155 million in soft wheat imports the shortfall implies, grossing to a commodity-value differential on the order of USD 85–90 million before freight and logistics differentials, and before accounting for the smaller, bulgur-adjusted surplus noted above.

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Conclusion and Recommendations

The 2.7-million-ton harvest represents a remarkable agricultural recovery and a significant step toward food security. But a complete evaluation of Syria’s wheat self-sufficiency must extend beyond aggregate tonnage. On its own narrow terms, the government’s claim holds: total procurement exceeds the stated 2.55-million-ton benchmark. But whether that translates into practical bread-wheat self-sufficiency depends on the final soft-to-durum composition, milling requirements, grain quality and the availability of stocks and trade. On the assumptions used in this analysis, the 2026 harvest appears to reproduce the same structural pattern that has characterized Syrian wheat production for decades: a relatively high share of durum alongside a potential soft-wheat deficit, a mismatch that has historically been managed through trade.

In fact, the first wheat shipments arriving through Tartous in August underscore the distinction: Syria can simultaneously meet its aggregate domestic production benchmark and remain an active participant in the wheat trade. The policy question, therefore, is not simply whether Syria produces enough wheat, but whether it produces the right wheat, in the right qualities, and at the right cost.

Strategically, Syria should consider:

1. Exporting the durum surplus to capture its international price premium, and using the proceeds to finance soft wheat imports. This swap, netted against itself, points to a gross foreign-currency gain of about USD 85–90 million before freight and logistics differentials, and before accounting for the smaller, bulgur- and pasta-adjusted surplus discussed above.

2. Investing in value-added processing (pasta, couscous, bulgur) to capture additional value from domestic durum production, rather than exporting raw grain alone.

3. Re-establish trade corridors that lapsed with the conflict by building on Syria’s pre-war track record as a competitive, quality durum exporter.

4. Weighing the case for shifting some procurement incentives or seed distribution toward soft wheat against the comparative-advantage logic of the current pattern. While, given durum’s price premium, exporting durum and importing soft wheat is, in principle, more profitable per hectare than growing soft wheat domestically to substitute for imports, a good case for rebalancing is resilience through the reduction of Syria’s exposure to a strategy that depends, every single year, on functioning trade execution for a bread-critical staple.

5. Prioritizing investment in irrigated wheat cultivation, which has consistently outperformed rainfed production in both yield and resilience. This should be pursued carefully, given competing demands on Syria’s water resources and the risk that poorly managed expansion could deplete or degrade the same water sources the strategy depends on.

6. Managing the communications gap between the self-sufficiency announcement and the wheat imports that are likely to continue regardless. Having publicly declared self-sufficiency for the first time since 2010, the government risks a credibility cost if Syria continues importing wheat in the months ahead. Framing imports as a targeted response to a specific compositional gap, rather than as a reversal of the self-sufficiency claim, would be both more accurate and less likely to erode public trust than an unexplained resumption of imports following a headline declaration of food security.

Official publication of the final, fully verified soft-to-durum breakdown for the entire 2.7-million-ton crop remains essential to resolve the remaining uncertainties in this analysis and to inform evidence-based policy decisions regarding imports, exports, milling strategies and agricultural planning for future seasons. As established earlier, the roughly 1.3–1.5 million-ton gap between the Grain Establishment’s narrower benchmark and Syria’s broader annual wheat requirement likely reflects non-bread uses and other components of wheat demand.

Further Reading: Syria’s 2025–2026 Agricultural Season

This piece builds on ongoing coverage of Syria’s wheat sector in The Syria Dispatch. For more on how this season unfolded month by month:

May 2026 — Wheat Price Protests Force Bonus as Stronger Harvest Season Tests Grain Procurement

June 2026 — Stronger Agricultural Harvest Prospects Meet Fuel, Storage, and Marketing Bottlenecks

July 2026 — Strong Wheat Harvest Exposes Storage, Payment, and Marketing Constraints

These articles are part of the Syria Monthly Economic Digest, a monthly publication tracking Syria’s economic developments across a wide range of topics. You can access the full archive here.

The Syria Dispatch is an independent publication covering Syria’s economy, politics, and society, founded and edited by Benjamin Fève.

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Looking for research, analysis, or advisory support on Syria? Benjamin Fève provides independent consulting on Syria’s political economy, reconstruction, and economic governance — including research design, briefings, interviews, and tailored analysis for organizations, investors, and policymakers. Get in touch to discuss a project.

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When Bashar al-Assad’s government collapsed in December 2024, the EU had no defined playbook. For more than a decade, Syria had been managed almost entirely through sanctions, humanitarian aid, and the EU’s own absence. A country that the Union funded heavily but engaged with barely at all as a political actor. There was no dormant strategy sitting in a drawer in Brussels waiting to be dusted off. What followed instead was something closer to improvisation under pressure: fast, often impressive, but built without the strategic scaffolding that a genuine re-engagement requires.

That’s the subject of my chapter in EuroMeSCo’s new Policy Study, “The Return of Syria to the Euro-Mediterranean Cooperation Arena,” coordinated by Reem Turkmani (LSE) alongside contributions from Julien Barnes-Dacey (ECFR), Rabha Seif Allam (ACPSS), and Ammar Kahf (Omran Center). My chapter, “From Containment to Re-engagement: The EU’s Evolving Approach to Syria after 2024,” is based on desk research plus a round of interviews conducted between March and April 2026 with EU officials, member state representatives, and Syrian public officials.

Read the full Policy Study

Download the Policy Study (PDF)

Brussels Moved Fast on Syria. Now Comes the Hard Part.

It’s worth stating plainly, because it often gets lost in critique: the EU moved quickly. Within days of Assad’s fall, the High Representative was calling it a “historic moment.” Sanctions on key economic sectors were suspended by February 2025 and fully lifted by May, a five-month turnaround on the EU’s most consequential Syria policy instrument of the past decade. High-level visits resumed almost immediately. The Syria Partnership Coordination Forum was launched in March 2025. A Technical Assistance Hub was agreed to help Syrian ministries navigate EU procedures. By May 2026, the two sides had held their first High-Level Political Dialogue in over fifteen years.

For an institution not exactly known for agility, this was a genuine demonstration of capacity for rapid political repositioning.

The problem is what sits underneath that diplomatic momentum, or rather, what doesn’t. My chapter argues that EU engagement remains instrument-driven rather than strategy-led. There is still no Multi-Annual Indicative Programme for Syria, the basic planning document that anchors EU cooperation with every other country in its neighbourhood. Without it, all EU funding continues to flow through ad hoc annual Special Measures, decided in Brussels rather than negotiated (but still implemented in coordination) with Syrian counterparts.

Then comes the issue of funding. Total EU allocations for Syria across 2025 came to roughly €425 million, a serious sum, but modest against reconstruction costs the World Bank now puts at $216 billion, close to ten times Syria’s projected GDP. More concerning is the trajectory: the provisional 2026-2027 package works out to about €310 million a year, a 26% drop from 2025 levels, with humanitarian funding falling even faster. At the exact moment Syria needs sustained, predictable support, the EU’s own numbers point toward contraction.

Then there are the operational bottlenecks that don’t show up in press releases: procedures that remain complex and risk-averse even when funds are available; a still-limited (…at the time of writing but now incrased) in-country footprint relative to the scale of what’s being asked of the Delegation; and an EU system split across DG ECHO, DG MENA, the Foreign Policy Instruments, the EEAS, and 27 member states pursuing their own bilateral tracks in parallel, sometimes to good effect, but rarely as a coherent whole.

The chapter is careful not to place the burden solely on the EU side. Syria’s institutions are themselves still being built in real time: centralised decision-making running largely through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, frequent turnover among interlocutors, and administrative capacity that simply has not caught up with the pace of political change. Syrian authorities, for their part, have sometimes prioritised the visibility of high-level meetings over the harder, less photogenic work of turning partnership language into sequenced, bankable projects. This is also understandable given the nature of reconstruction needs, but still. Both sides, in other words, are still learning how to do this after more than a decade in which neither had much practice.

None of this is presented as failure. It’s presented as (hopefully) an accurate diagnosis of a genuinely difficult transition, and the chapter closes with a set of practical recommendations rather than a call for a grand new strategy document: clarify direction by using existing coordination platforms (the Partnership Coordination Forum, the High-Level Dialogue, and eventually the dormant 1978 Cooperation Agreement) more systematically; strengthen the EU’s operational presence on the ground so that commitments can actually be delivered; and begin the gradual shift from humanitarian and stabilisation instruments toward the tools of real economic reintegration (trade facilitation, regulatory cooperation, support for productive sectors) that Syria will need far more than it needs another donor conference.

The core argument, in short: the EU has shown it can move fast when the politics allow it. The open question, the one the rest of this transition will answer, is whether it can convert that reactive flexibility into something durable enough to outlast the initial momentum. At the same time, the question is also whether the Syrian authorities will treat this as a serious long-term partnership rather than a series of visibility wins. The EU can only move as fast as its own institutions allow; Syria’s institutions need to continue to show that they want to move.

Note: Due to the nature of academic work, this piece was submitted in mid-May 2026 but published on July 31, which, given the rapid pace of change in Syria, means some details may no longer reflect the current situation. Readers should treat the analysis as a snapshot of that moment rather than a fully up-to-date account.

The full Policy Study includes chapters on security and civil peace (Rabha Seif Allam and Ammar Kahf) and on the strategic case for a deeper Europe-Syria partnership (Julien Barnes-Dacey).

Read the full Policy Study

Download the Policy Study (PDF)

More on the EU-Syria Relations

In the Research & Analysis Section

In the Notes & Commentary Section

In the Syria Monthly Economic Digest

Welcome to the July 2026 edition of the Syria Monthly Economic Digest.

July was a busy month for Syria’s economic recovery… on paper, at least. Macron became the first EU head of state to visit Damascus since Assad’s fall. Washington moved to strip Syria’s terrorism-sponsor designation, clearing away a legal obstacle that’s been quietly blocking banks from touching Syrian money for over a decade. Lebanon and Syria set up a new joint committee to modernize a relationship still governed by agreements from the 1990s. The Central Bank wrapped up its currency replacement, floated its first sovereign sukuk, and started drafting rules for electronic wallets. An Iraq-Syria pipeline deal got real money and real companies behind it.

Read together, though, this month’s dispatch tells a familiar story, one we’ve been tracking since the earliest editions of this digest: the gap between what gets announced and what gets delivered. Against that backdrop, farmers who grew Syria’s best wheat harvest in years are still waiting over a month to get paid—a payment problem we first flagged back in May, when price protests forced the government’s hand, and again in June, when farmers were still waiting on funds the Central Bank hadn’t transferred. Families in Hasakah and Deir Ezzor missed the currency-exchange deadline because there weren’t enough centers to serve them, echoing the same uneven rollout—and the same protests over fuel, pensions, and services—that we covered in Qamishli and Hasakah last month. A price cut meant to help drivers at the pump instead produced queues and a black market. And refugees are returning home to housing that isn’t repaired, services that don’t exist, and a labor market that doesn’t have room for them.

None of this is an argument that July wasn’t a genuinely significant month; every month since Assad’s fall has been significant. The throughline across this issue, and across the eighteen months since the beginning of the transition, is that Syria’s macro-level reset keeps running ahead of its ability to deliver at the level where most people actually live. But it’s worth saying plainly: that gap is normal, not damning. Countries don’t rebuild institutions, currencies, and trust in a year and a half—Syria is doing in eighteen months what usually takes a decade, and the direction of travel, month after month, keeps pointing the same way: forward. Closing that gap is the next chapter, and it’s the one we’re most looking forward to covering.

As always, thanks for reading.

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About the Syria Monthly Economic Digest

The Syria Monthly Economic Digest is a monthly publication by The Syria Dispatch that tracks the political and economic developments shaping Syria’s transition.

Each edition focuses on the developments that we believe matter most over the past month—not every headline, but the ones that reveal something important about where the country is heading. These may include policy decisions, investment announcements, energy and infrastructure projects, banking and monetary reforms, trade and reconstruction, property rights disputes, public services, and the evolving relationship between the Syrian state, society, and external actors.

The format is straightforward. Each article begins with a summary of what happened, followed by a “Why It Matters” section that provides additional context, background, and analysis.

The digest is written for readers who want a structured, analytical overview of Syria’s transition, including policymakers, researchers, journalists, diplomats, development practitioners, investors, civil society actors, and anyone interested in the country’s political economy.

It is not intended to be exhaustive, nor does it replace daily news coverage. Instead, it offers a monthly snapshot of the developments that we believe deserve closer attention and a better understanding of how they fit into Syria’s broader transition.

If you have comments, corrections, suggestions, or would like to collaborate, we would be delighted to hear from you.

Also Published This Month

In the Interview Section

In the Notes & Commentary Section

Quotes and Media Appearances

• Can foreign energy investment help power Syria’s recovery after years of war? — Arab News (Anan Tello, July 2, 2026)

• Syria’s parliament takes shape under Al-Sharaa’s managed inclusivity, analysts say — Arab News (Anan Tello, July 2, 2026)

• Macron zu Besuch in Damaskus – Explosion nahe seines Hotels — Handelsblatt (Inga Rogg, Friederike Hofmann, July 7, 2026)

• Macron’s Damascus visit signals French bid for influence in new Syria, analysts say — Arab News (Anan Tello, July 7, 2026)

• What France hopes to gain from re-engaging with Syria — Arab News (Anan Tello, July 10, 2026)

• The US delisting won’t unlock Syrian reconstruction money until the banking rails are fixed — EnterpriseAM (July 13, 2026)

• The economy of two sister nations: Syria and Lebanon reorder their interests — NoonPost (Muhammad Kakhy, July 23, 2026)

• استمرار التضخم يهدد تعافي الاقتصاد السوري — EnabBaladi (Amir Hukuk, July 27, 2026)

• La Syrie se promeut en plateforme énergétique et logistique alternative au détroit d’Ormuz — Le Monde (Hélène Sallon, July 29, 2026)

• Syria’s old Assad-era banknotes lose legal tender status in currency overhaul — Arab News (Anan Tello, July 31, 2026)

Key Developments: Syria and Lebanon took several steps to place their bilateral relationship on a more formal, state-to-state footing, with immediate priorities identified as being electricity interconnection, trade, transport, and easier movement of people and goods.

These developments started in early July, during Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani’s visit to Beirut on July 2, when the two governments established a new Syrian-Lebanese Higher Committee (SLHC) intended to coordinate cooperation across economic, political, security, infrastructure, energy, water, telecommunications, and social affairs. The visit also included the inaugural meeting of a new Lebanese-Syrian Business Council.

The SLHC will review more than 40 agreements and memoranda inherited from the Assad period, including frameworks governing investment, taxation, visas, and other aspects of commercial relations, with the process eventually leading to a broader bilateral trade agreement, although revising the existing framework is expected to take several months.

At the economic level, relations advanced further during a two-day visit to Damascus by a Lebanese delegation headed by Economy and Trade Minister Amer Bisat on July 14 and 15. Bisat met President Ahmad al-Sharaa and Syrian Economy and Industry Minister Nidal al-Shaar and participated in a joint roundtable bringing together officials, chambers of commerce, investors, and business representatives. The discussions covered trade facilitation, investment, customs and transport barriers, business mobility, and mechanisms for improving the exchange of economic and commercial information. On commercial ties, Bisat argued that trade could eventually reach several billion dollars, given the two countries’ geographical and commercial interdependence.

The meetings also produced new private-sector cooperation arrangements. The Federation of Syrian Chambers of Commerce and the Beirut and Mount Lebanon Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture signed a memorandum covering information exchange, commercial opportunities, joint economic events, and support for concluding transactions between businesses. A separate memorandum between the Syrian-Lebanese and Lebanese-Syrian business councils sought to create a permanent institutional channel to address barriers to trade and investment and expand direct contact between companies in both countries.

Agricultural cooperation also advanced on July 27, when the two countries agreed to prepare a protocol regulating cross-border trade in vegetables and other agricultural products. The proposed framework is intended to reduce congestion during peak seasons, harmonize laboratory testing, and strengthen coordination on plant health, livestock, food processing, and agricultural policy.

Energy cooperation also moved beyond general statements of intent. Earlier trilateral discussions with Jordan had identified gas transit through Syria and the reactivation of Syrian-Lebanese electricity interconnections as priorities. On July 22, Lebanese Energy Minister Joe Saddi said Türkiye had proposed either an electricity-swap arrangement under which Türkiye would supply Syria and Damascus would provide an equivalent amount to Lebanon or a new cable running through the Syrian coast toward Tripoli.

Transport and border infrastructure were another major focus. Lebanese Public Works and Transport Minister Fayez Rassamny and Syrian border and customs officials discussed upgrading shared crossings, reducing truck delays, coordinating customs procedures, and improving freight and transit flows. Lebanon also proposed a new facility at Masnaa closer to the Syrian border post.

Syria separately announced that the al-Dabousiyeh crossing would reopen in early September following bridge repairs, restoring a direct route between the Port of Tripoli and central and northern Syria and easing pressure on the main Damascus–Beirut corridor. The Lebanese government had launched a tender in May to study and modernize a railway from the Port of Tripoli to al-Abboudieh on the Syrian border. Technical studies were expected to take six months, although implementation would depend on feasibility and financing.

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Why It Matters: These developments matter less for their immediate economic impact than for what they signal: an attempt to define what a ‘normal’ relationship between Syria and Lebanon should look like. Economic ties between the two countries have always been unusually dense, but the institutional framework governing them developed under decades of Syrian political and security dominance in Lebanon and often depended on informal networks, discretionary decisions, and unequal treatment.

Customs valuation, tariffs, certificates of origin, truck access, transloading, transit guarantees, passenger rules, informal crossings, and security coordination all need workable agreements before this counts as normalization. Tariff treatment is also unequal: Bisat said Lebanese exporters currently face a tariff that does not apply to their Syrian counterparts, an imbalance that any broader trade agreement will have to address.

February’s abrupt restrictions on foreign trucks showed the costs of getting this wrong, producing congestion, protests, repeated handling of goods, and higher import costs. Both Syria and Lebanon have a strong incentive to move quickly: Lebanon depends on Syrian territory for access to Jordan, Iraq, and the Gulf, giving Damascus an opportunity to collect transit revenues, while Syrian exporters still benefit from access to Lebanese ports and services.

The scope for commercial complementarity is nevertheless considerable. Lebanese contractors, engineers, logistics companies, tourism operators, professional-services firms, and diaspora investors possess skills, networks, and, in some cases, capital that could support Syria’s recovery. Lebanon’s banking collapse means it can no longer automatically resume its former role as Syria’s financial gateway, but its private sector still retains experience in sectors where Syrian capacity has been severely weakened. Syria, meanwhile, could regain a substantial nearby market and help improve its trade balance by supplying the Lebanese market with agricultural goods, food products, construction materials, and manufactured inputs while using Lebanese services and ports where they remain competitive.

Throughout most of the 2000s, Syria consistently recorded a trade surplus with Lebanon, with exports peaking at around USD 340 million in 2010 against imports of USD 221 million. Since the conflict, however, that pattern has largely reversed, with Syria recording persistent trade deficits in most years after 2012. Although bilateral trade recovered modestly to a total of nearly USD 300 million in 2025, it remains well below its pre-war trajectory, illustrating the significant scope for renewed commercial integration.

Energy could again become an important part of the relationship: Beirut says an electricity-import contract with Damascus, separately from the Turkish proposal, is nearly ready, while the Arab Gas Pipeline would also make Syria an essential transit country for supplies reaching Lebanon. Tourism also offers a faster source of hard currency. Syria received 8.5 million visitors, among 20% Lebanese according to Syrian Planning and Statistics Commission data viewed by The Syria Dispatch, and generated an estimated USD 8.4 billion from tourism in 2010. While most Lebanese came on day-trips, easier and more welcoming entries for Lebanese visitors could quickly revive business travel, family visits, weekends, restaurants, hotels, and transport services, thereby bringing significant foreign currency even if they “do not spend much.”

Still, historic and mutual distrust, continued insecurity in Lebanon, smuggling networks, weak enforcement, and the collapse of Lebanon’s banking system will limit how quickly trade and investment recover. Reducing Syrian fuel and commodity subsidies should narrow some of the price gaps that encourage smuggling, but formal trade will only displace informal networks if customs duties, transport costs, and payment channels become competitive.

Saudi Arabia’s earlier restrictions on Lebanese imports followed repeated drug-smuggling cases, and their removal came only after renewed efforts to strengthen state control. That regional precedent is one thing Syria should note as it works to keep smuggling networks from undermining formal trade.

But Lebanon also offers a more direct warning for Syrian reconstruction itself. Its post-war model concentrated heavily on finance and high-end real estate, and the Solidere experience remains associated with contested expropriations, elite capture, and the exclusion of former residents and small businesses. Lebanese expertise can support Syria’s recovery, but Syria should draw on that expertise without reproducing the same model: housing, infrastructure, productive sectors, and local employment should come before speculative redevelopment.

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Key Developments: On July 17, the Syrian Petroleum Company (SPC) and Iraq’s Basra Oil Company signed a memorandum of understanding at the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington to rehabilitate the Haditha–Baniyas pipeline, historically associated with the Kirkuk–Baniyas route. A second memorandum, signed with a consortium comprising Chevron, UCC Holding, and TI Capital, provides for technical and financial studies and the preparation of an implementation framework.

The historic Kirkuk–Baniyas pipeline, which previously carried around 300,000 barrels per day, could reach an operational capacity of one million barrels per day by 2029 and two million barrels per day by 2030. The proposed line should follow the historic route for approximately 1,520 kilometers, with a preliminary diameter of 52 inches and planned capacity of up to two million barrels per day. Because the old pipeline is heavily damaged and considered beyond repair, the project would largely involve replacing it with a new line. Construction is estimated to take around 30 months after the completion of studies and the signature of a final implementation contract.

The US State Department welcomed (and backed) the agreement as a priority infrastructure project and supported the involvement of a US-led international consortium, as Washington seeks to develop alternatives to the Strait of Hormuz.

The agreement builds on an export corridor that is already operating on a smaller scale following the closure of the Hormuz Strait, though Iraqi and Syrian officials have said that they intend to retain the corridor even if normal traffic through the Strait resumes.

Iraqi fuel oil has been transported by road to Baniyas since the spring, with daily traffic rising from around 10 tanker trucks in April to approximately 1,000 by late July. By July 28, SPC officials said that some 2.1 million tons had crossed Syria for export through Baniyas, with one maritime cargo leaving approximately every seven to ten days. Between June and July, three Aframax tankers loaded approximately 1.42 million barrels of Iraqi fuel oil at Baniyas for delivery to the Bahamas, Texas, and the wider US Gulf Coast, representing the first such shipments from Syria to the United States. Cargoes exported through Baniyas have also reached Spain and Egypt.

More generally, foreign interest in Syria’s own oil and gas sector endured, although it remains to be seen at a large scale. TotalEnergies Chief Executive Patrick Pouyanné said during President Emmanuel Macron’s visit that the company would discuss moving from its May offshore exploration memorandum towards a formal contract. He nevertheless stressed that insecurity continued to rule out a return to onshore operations and identified the restoration of Iraqi oil-transit routes through Syria as the more immediate priority.

Still, some previously announced foreign partnerships nevertheless began moving towards implementation. On July 3, the SPC began executing its project with Saudi Arabia’s ADES to develop gas fields in central Syria. The project aims to raise production from the covered fields by 25% during the first six months and by 50% by mid-2027, bringing their combined output to approximately four million cubic meters per day, primarily to support electricity generation. In Hasakah, Gulfsands prepared an investment plan covering the rehabilitation of existing wells and the drilling of new ones operated by Dijla Petroleum, while HKN assumed operational responsibilities at the Remilan fields.

Only around 40% of the country’s oil and gas wells are currently operating, producing approximately 130,000 barrels of oil and 6.3 million cubic meters of gas per day, according to SPC official Ayman al-Marai. Conditions varied considerably between individual fields. Al-Omar is reportedly producing around 5,000 barrels per day, compared with approximately 40,000 previously, while the Conoco gas field remained destroyed and out of service. Only around 15% of wells at the Jabsa fields are operational, although officials expected the proportion to rise to 60% within two months, whereas the Rmeilan fields were described as being in comparatively better condition.

As for refining, Syria is preparing for a temporary reduction in capacity. An official at the Syrian Petroleum Company said that the Baniyas refinery would close for approximately four months from the end of July or the beginning of August for extensive rehabilitation. The work is intended to raise its capacity from around 90,000 to 130,000 barrels per day, while an import plan was prepared to cover domestic requirements during the shutdown. The company previously issued a tender for a proposed 210,000-barrel-per-day refinery at Furqlus in Homs and announced plans for a 70,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Deir Ezzor.

Yet, regional and investment developments contrasted sharply with renewed disruption in Syria’s domestic fuel market. A reduction of between 14% and 20% in fuel prices at the end of June was followed by long queues and temporary closures at filling stations. Energy Minister Mohammad al-Bashir attributed the disruption to the rejection of a substandard petrol shipment, reduced orders by station operators anticipating the price cut, consumers delaying purchases, and the sudden release of accumulated demand once the new prices took effect. He apologized for the crisis, while the ministry dispatched more than 25 million liters of petrol (9.77 million liters) and diesel (15.34 million liters) to filling stations and storage facilities. The Minister later ordered inspections of fuel quality across filling stations following complaints about petrol specifications. On July 27, two tankers also arrived at Baniyas carrying 64,324 tons of diesel and 5,620 tons of liquefied gas.

Against this backdrop, filling station operators, however, argued that the disruption also reflected poor coordination around the price reduction, noting that stations had purchased fuel at the previous, higher prices without any compensation mechanism to cover subsequent losses. According to the head of the filling-station owners’ union in Damascus and Rural Damascus, some stations lost more than old SYP 60 million, prompting operators to reduce orders or delay sales, while black-market petrol reportedly sold for between old SYP 20,000 and old SYP 25,000 per liter, about 60% to 100% higher than official prices. Meanwhile, the government raised fuel prices twice during July, bringing the price of 90-octane petrol to old SYP 14,500 per liter, 95-octane petrol to old SYP 14,900, and diesel to old SYP 12,100. Compared with the June 30 prices, these represented increases of 16%, nearly 15%, and around 13%, respectively, in less than one month.

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Why It Matters: The emerging Iraq–Syria corridor is strategically significant, but the existing truck-based route should be understood as an emergency workaround rather than a commercially mature alternative to the Strait of Hormuz. Moving Iraqi fuel oil across the border in hundreds of tanker trucks before reloading it at Baniyas adds transport, handling, insurance, and border costs, while the cargoes are intended primarily for re-export rather than for supplying Syrian motorists. Its commercial rationale could therefore weaken once Gulf shipping normalizes. A functioning pipeline would alter that calculation, but its long-term value would rest principally on providing Iraq with redundancy and greater export security, not necessarily on being the cheapest route under normal market conditions.

The corridor will also require greater mutual confidence between Baghdad and Damascus. In July, Iraqi tanker drivers complained of attacks and insecurity on Syrian roads, as at least two trucks were attacked by unknown assailants in April and June, and others were detained in July. At the same time, Syrian authorities announced several anti-smuggling operations involving cargoes arriving from Iraq, including the seizure of weapons allegedly destined for Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

The lack of security guarantees was also highlighted by Patrick Pouyanné, thereby reinforcing a point repeatedly made in previous editions: Syria’s geographical position and hydrocarbon potential are insufficient by themselves to attract investment. Over the past months, several attacks were carried out by the Islamic State near oil fields, including al-Omar, one of Syria’s largest (February, May).

On a positive note, UN Comtrade mirror data (see table below) nevertheless show that Syria recorded around USD 110.8 million in crude and refined-product exports between July 2025 and March 2026, equivalent to approximately 1.58 million barrels, destined for Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, and Bulgaria. This represents a meaningful, if still episodic, return to international oil trade. It should not, however, be confused with a broad recovery in production or domestic energy security, particularly when most wells remain inactive, and Syria continues to rely heavily on imported petroleum products.

The domestic fuel crisis, meanwhile, provided an early test of the government’s more market-oriented pricing system, especially following the launch of a permanent committee to determine the prices of petroleum products and mineral resources. Linking retail prices more closely to international costs may help limit subsidies and protect the continuity of imports, but it also transfers much greater global price volatility to Syrian consumers and distributors. Still, the July developments demonstrated how abrupt adjustments, weak communication, and the absence of a mechanism for compensating stations holding higher-priced inventories can turn a pricing decision into queues, reduced orders, and black-market activity.

The contrast is striking but not contradictory: Syria can earn transit and port revenues by re-exporting Iraqi fuel oil while still struggling to provide sufficient and affordable petrol and diesel domestically, since these involve different products and supply chains. A credible market-based system will therefore require a transparent pricing formula, advance notice, arrangements for existing inventories, and targeted protection for households and transport-dependent sectors.

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Key Developments: On July 8, President Donald Trump notified Congress of his intention to rescind Syria’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism, beginning the statutory 45-day process required before the decision takes effect. Syria has remained on the list since 1979. The designation entails restrictions on US foreign assistance, defense exports, certain dual-use goods, and financial transactions. A week later, Representative Joe Wilson said that Under Secretary of Commerce Jeffrey Kessler had also committed to accelerating revisions to Syria-related export regulations, potentially facilitating greater access to US equipment and technology for civilian sectors.

Syrian officials welcomed the announcement. President Ahmad al-Sharaa described the decision as a major achievement and credited the shift in US policy, alongside support from Türkiye and Gulf states, with helping Syria unify the country and move towards recovery. Finance Minister Yisr Barnieh called it a “historic moment” that could accelerate investment and economic recovery, while Central Bank Governor Safwat Raslan described it as a positive turning point that would strengthen confidence and support Syria’s reintegration into the global financial system. Qatar, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and the Gulf Cooperation Council also welcomed the announcement.

Meanwhile, congressional scrutiny continued to focus on the Syrian government’s counterterrorism cooperation, protection of minorities, treatment of foreign fighters, governance record, and commitments regarding regional security.

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Why It Matters: Removing Syria from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list matters for considerably more than the country’s international reputation. Although Washington had already dismantled most comprehensive sanctions in 2025, the designation continued to create a separate layer of legal risk.

Under the terrorism exception to the US Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (28 U.S.C. § 1605A), eligible claimants can sue designated states for specified acts of terrorism, while Section 201 of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act allows holders of qualifying judgments to attach and execute against the blocked assets of a designated state or its agencies and instrumentalities in order to satisfy compensatory damages.

This risk is concrete. In Foley v. Union de Banques Arabes et Françaises (UBAF), holders of terrorism-related judgments against Syria pursued Syrian government-controlled funds held by UBAF in Paris. In March 2026, a federal court in New York granted partial summary judgment in their favor on the turnover claims, finding that approximately USD 50 million in Syrian government-controlled assets held by the French bank were subject to turnover. The decision showed that Syrian assets did not necessarily have to be held directly in the United States to become exposed: a US court could, under certain circumstances, order a foreign bank subject to its jurisdiction to bring Syrian assets into New York for execution.

Banks were therefore not automatically liable merely for holding Syrian money, but they could be drawn into discovery, restraint, attachment, and turnover proceedings. Institutions accused of routing or concealing Syrian transactions could also face separate sanctions-enforcement and litigation risks; something integrated with banks’ internal risk policies. It is estimated that US courts have already entered more than USD 31 billion in judgments against Syria since 2011, while at least 186 additional cases remain pending.

Delisting will not erase existing judgments against Syria or necessarily prevent litigation arising from conduct committed while the country was designated. Its effect on existing claims may therefore remain limited, though the extent to which this can be chilling for international financial institutions is unclear. It should, however, reduce uncertainty surrounding future Syrian state assets and transactions, particularly if accompanied by the removal of remaining blocking measures. This could lessen the litigation and compliance risks that have discouraged international banks from processing Syrian government-related payments or rebuilding correspondent relationships.

Recent developments already point in that direction. On July 15, the Central Bank organized a technical workshop with Citibank, attended by representatives of the Ministry of Finance, covering correspondent-banking relationships, US-dollar clearing, cross-border payments, and the infrastructure required for international financial settlement. While presented as a capacity-building exercise rather than the establishment of a new correspondent-banking relationship, the workshop illustrated the practical work now underway to reconnect Syria’s financial institutions to global payment networks. Two weeks later, the Central Bank of Syria and the Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye signed an agreement allowing the Syrian central bank to open a Turkish-lira deposit account at its Turkish counterpart and held technical discussions on payment systems, financial infrastructure, digitalization, and banking-system interoperability.

While these developments cannot be attributed solely to the SST decision, they would have been considerably more difficult while the designation remained in force. The risk that Syrian state funds could be restrained or attached to satisfy terrorism judgments created a powerful deterrent for institutions considering correspondent banking, dollar clearing, or the custody of Syrian assets. Delisting does not eliminate legacy claims, but it materially improves the legal environment for new accounts and future transactions.

More broadly, the decision reinforces a clear shift in US policy from merely permitting economic engagement with Syria towards actively facilitating it. It follows the termination of the comprehensive sanctions program, the repeal of the Caesar Act, the publication of a US State Department-funded investor handbook and sector guides, and increasingly direct support for American commercial participation. US companies have since entered agreements covering gas-field development and offshore exploration, while Washington has backed efforts to revive the Kirkuk–Baniyas pipeline, with Chevron linked to the prospective consortium. The political breadth of this shift was illustrated by late Senator Lindsey Graham, previously one of the most skeptical voices regarding Syria’s new leadership, who said after meeting Ahmad al-Sharaa that working with him was in the US national interest and that he represented the best chance for a functioning and united Syria.

Still, the transactional nature of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy could eventually create friction if economic engagement becomes increasingly tied to US regional security priorities. President Trump has repeatedly suggested that Syria could play a role in confronting Hezbollah in Lebanon, whereas President Ahmad al-Sharaa has consistently stated that Damascus has no intention of intervening militarily there. Syria undoubtedly has an interest in securing its border, limiting arms trafficking, and preventing Hezbollah from destabilizing Syrian territory (Read this month’s Syria-Lebanon relations article). However, direct involvement in Lebanon would carry significant political and sectarian risks while diverting scarce state capacity away from domestic consolidation and reconstruction.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s subsequent emphasis on Syria addressing its own internal challenges and securing the border suggests a more restrained approach, but the difference remains important: the present positive trajectory could be tested if continued US economic support becomes tied to regional security demands that Damascus considers either destabilizing or beyond its capabilities.

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Update (August 2, 2026): On August 2, 2026, the Central Bank of Syria announced that old banknotes could be exchanged for new ones at all public and private banks and Syrian Post branches across the country for one week following the end of the main replacement process—that is, until August 6, 2026. The Central Bank also updated its estimate of the old monetary mass replaced to more than 95%.

Key Developments: Following up on the currency redenomination and replacement process, the Central Bank reported in July that around 80% of the old monetary mass had been replaced, up from 63% at the beginning of June, as the nationwide currency-replacement process approached its final deadline. The Central Bank re-explained that, following July 30, old banknotes are no longer considered legal tender and have ceased to be accepted for ordinary payments. The Central Bank nevertheless clarified that holders would retain the right to exchange old notes directly through the Central Bank in Damascus for another five years.

Populations in eastern Syria remain unhappy about the implementation of this process, however, as it remains highly uneven and potentially regressive. Residents of Hasakah called for another extension, arguing that the limited number of authorised centres made it impossible for many people to complete the process before the deadline, despite the 11 currency-replacement centres designated in late June. Local residents claimed that old notes still represented more than 90% of liquidity circulating in the governorate, while some money changers reportedly imposed commissions or applied different exchange rates to transactions involving old and new banknotes.

Hasakah residents also pointed to the refusal of some petrol stations and businesses to accept old notes, despite their continued legal-tender status, which added to the pressure. Damascus and Rural Damascus have also witnessed such a phenomenon. Similar difficulties were reported in Raqqa, where currency replacement was concentrated in the central post office and a small number of additional locations, leading to long queues, shortages of personnel and equipment, and cases in which exchange offices reportedly charged additional fees reaching around 15% of the amount exchanged. In the final days of the replacement period, the Commercial Bank of Syria extended branch opening hours until 5 p.m. on July 28 and 29, and both the Commercial Bank and Real Estate Bank remained open until 8 p.m. on July 30 exclusively for currency exchanges, reflecting the heavy last-minute demand and congestion at replacement centers, but did not resolve the uneven geographical access to those centers.

Early in the month, the Central Bank continued to expand its physical presence in areas that had lacked normal banking services during the conflict. Its Idlib branch reopened on July 1, followed by the Hasakah branch reopening on July 2, following the earlier restoration of operations in Raqqa and the designation of additional exchange points in the northeast. Following the re-opening of the Idlib branch, Central Bank Governor Safwat Raslan announced preparations to gradually withdraw the Turkish lira from circulation there, beginning with an agreement to stop additional Turkish currency from entering the Syrian market and encouraging residents and businesses to return to the Syrian pound.

The end of the currency-replacement process coincided with a broader shift in the Central Bank’s policy messaging. On July 13, Raslan said the bank was implementing a new monetary policy aimed at stabilizing the exchange rate in coordination with the Ministry of Finance, while stressing that the exchange rate should not be treated as the sole measure of monetary-policy performance. He said the Central Bank was revising the laws and regulations governing the banking sector, expanding cooperation with domestic and international financial institutions, and implementing short-, medium-, and long-term plans to modernize the financial system, while continuing work on its national anti-money-laundering and counterterrorist-financing strategy. The Central Bank is also reportedly preparing a regulatory framework for licensing electronic wallets and digital-payment services.

At the fiscal-policy level, the Ministry of Finance began preparing a framework for Syria’s first sovereign sukuk issuance. Finance Minister Yisr Barnieh reviewed a draft strategy covering government securities, including Treasury bills, Treasury bonds, and sovereign sukuk. Sukuks are Sharia-compliant instruments whose returns are linked to an underlying asset, project, or economic activity rather than conventional interest-bearing government debt. The ministry said the instruments were intended to provide “real, non-inflationary” financing for the state budget, establish a benchmark yield curve for pricing financial assets and services, and provide the Central Bank with securities that could eventually be used for liquidity management and open-market operations. The 2026 state budget had already identified sukuk as a principal means of financing the projected deficit. In that context, Barnieh met a delegation from Jordan’s Ministry of Finance and Central Bank to examine Jordan’s experience with sovereign sukuk and discuss support for Syria’s first issuance.

An International Monetary Fund mission also concluded consultations in Damascus in late July, meeting the Ministry of Finance, Central Bank, Planning and Statistics Commission, Energy Ministry, Syrian Petroleum Company, border and customs authority, and the Syrian sovereign fund. The discussions covered economic recovery, fiscal performance, financial- and banking-sector reforms, domestic financing instruments—including sovereign sukuk—and preparations for the 2027 budget. The mission also worked with the authorities on a medium-term macroeconomic and fiscal framework, improved economic data, and stronger coordination between state institutions.

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Why It Matters: The currency exchange process is likely to reproduce inequalities that the government seems unable to offset between the western and eastern parts of the country. Indeed, requiring holders of old notes to travel to the Central Bank’s headquarters in Damascus, present at least 100 banknotes, and receive the equivalent through a bank account creates obvious barriers for people outside the capital, particularly in eastern Syria, where formal banking access remains limited and travel to the capital can be costly… or unsafe. The recent devastating incident on the Damascus-Deir Ezzor highway is again highlighting such risks and inequalities, with residents of the locality where the incident happened calling on President Ahmad Al-Sharaa to intervene to relieve their city, and more generally, within the context of the incident, local feelings of marginalization, residents of Deir Ezzor are protesting the marginalization and the lack of services.

Discontent regarding the end of the currency replacement process intensified on the final day of the exchange period. Hundreds reportedly queued outside banks and post offices across Hasakah, Raqqa, and Deir Ezzor, while protests in Dhiban included road closures and burning tires. Residents in parts of Hasakah said they had to travel to Hasakah city or Qamishli because no exchange center operated locally, while intermediaries reportedly bought old notes at discounts of up to 15 percent.

Back to the currency replacement process, the post-July 30 setup is especially difficult to justify now that Central Bank branches have reopened in most governorates. In practice, many people who cannot meet these conditions may continue to rely on brokers and money changers, leaving them exposed to discounts, commissions, and other forms of exploitation.

The closer coordination between the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance is, nevertheless, a positive development. Syria’s fiscal and monetary problems cannot be managed separately or arbitrarily, as was the case over the past decade. Deficit financing, liquidity, exchange-rate stability, government borrowing, and banking-sector reform are closely connected. The proposed issuance of Treasury bills, bonds, and sovereign sukuk suggests that the government is trying to move away from financing the budget primarily through direct monetary expansion. If these instruments mobilize existing savings rather than newly created money, they could provide a less inflationary source of financing while also giving the Central Bank securities that can eventually be used for open-market operations and more active liquidity management.

The 2026 budget projects a deficit of around USD 1.8 billion, equivalent to roughly 5 percent of GDP, which the government plans to finance mainly through bonds and sovereign sukuk. This marks a break with Assad-era practice: between 2011 and 2019, fiscal deficits averaged around 12 percent of GDP and were financed largely through Central Bank borrowing, contributing to inflation and currency depreciation; even in 2024, the deficit was estimated at 8 percent of GDP and was expected to be financed primarily by the Central Bank. By contrast, the government recorded a small budget surplus in 2025 while refraining from monetary financing.

The impact of sovereign sukuk will, however, depend on how they are structured and who buys them. Syria’s banking system already provides very little credit to businesses, and government securities could crowd out private-sector lending if banks prefer relatively safe sovereign instruments to financing firms and productive investment. The risk is particularly important in an economy with limited liquidity and weak financial intermediation. On the other hand, sukuk could support recovery if they attract dormant savings or external investors and finance clearly identified, economically viable infrastructure or productive projects. Their success will therefore depend less on the Islamic label than on project selection, transparency, repayment capacity, and whether the proceeds create future economic value rather than simply covering recurrent expenditure.

Finally, the planned regulation of electronic wallets is an important step toward formalizing Syria’s rapidly expanding digital payments sector. This is particularly relevant for Sham Cash, which has controversially become one of the country’s most widely used payment platforms while operating in a largely unregulated environment. There is no public record (in the Official Gazette or elsewhere) that Sham Cash currently holds a formal license, though the company registered in Damascus last year and may hold some form of authorization from the Central Bank or the former Syrian Salvation Government that has not been publicly disclosed. For many Syrians, especially in areas with limited banking infrastructure, electronic wallets have increasingly substituted for traditional bank accounts, making their integration into a formal regulatory framework an important prerequisite for rebuilding confidence in the financial system.

In this regard, Sham Cash’s announcement on July 2 that it would begin implementing new regulatory standards and compliance requirements, in line with the Central Bank’s guidance and international best practices, suggests the company is positioning itself for an eventual licensing framework while anticipating greater regulatory oversight of the sector. More broadly, it also signals that the authorities are serious about moving from a de facto monopoly toward a regulated market in which additional electronic-wallet providers could eventually operate under common rules. There is little indication so far that the government would oppose licensing competitors. Still, Sham Cash’s head start is now substantial enough that a more open licensing regime would not necessarily translate into a more competitive market.

Sham Cash could remain the government’s default partner for state-linked payment flows regardless of how many licenses are issued, and there is a real risk that licensing conditions end up designed, deliberately or not, in ways that only an incumbent of Sham Cash’s scale can currently meet, thereby entrenching rather than breaking the existing monopoly. Interestingly, the July 2 statement was also released in English, apparently a first for the company, which may indicate an effort to signal to potential foreign partners, investors, and payment providers that Sham Cash intends to align itself with internationally recognized regulatory and compliance standards.

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Key Developments: Syria just had its strongest wheat procurement season in years: the Syrian Grain Corporation says official collection centers had taken in 2.5 million tons by July 29, well above recent seasons and enough to meaningfully rebuild public stocks.

Detailed figures published earlier showed that 2.08 million tons had been delivered through more than 116,000 transactions at 84 centers across 11 governorates. Soft wheat accounted for 54.4% of the total and durum wheat for 45.6%, although most deliveries were classified as second-, third-, or fourth-grade rather than first-grade. Officials expected wheat marketing to continue until the end of August. Procurement also began in Suweida in July, where preliminary estimates similarly pointed to better yields and grain quality than in previous years.

But a harvest this large strained storage, transport, and payment systems. Silos and collection centers in the northeast reached capacity during the procurement peak, forcing the authorities to open additional centers in Hasakah, use outdoor bulk-storage areas, transfer grain between governorates, and allow farmers to deliver to centers in Damascus and Homs, with the Grain Corporation covering transport costs. The recently rehabilitated Adra silo, now Syria’s largest with a capacity for 200,000 tons, helped absorb part of the surplus, while further silo repairs are underway.

The government also relied heavily on its new electronic booking platform, which initially caused registration difficulties but later reduced congestion and allowed officials to anticipate delivery volumes and coordinate weighing, testing, accounting, and payment procedures. The more serious bottleneck was liquidity. Delays of around a month in paying farmers reportedly encouraged the emergence of a parallel grain market, with cash buyers purchasing wheat at prices around 20% below the official rate of new SYP 55,000 per ton from farmers needing to repay debts, cover harvesting and transport expenses, or finance the next season.

The government also allocated around old SYP 10 trillion (new SYP 100 billion) for procurement and began transferring funds to the Agricultural Cooperative Bank, but payment preparations were still continuing in parts of Hasakah by mid-July. By that time, however, it was reported that most obstacles had been resolved and that the Agricultural Cooperative Bank would start disbursing payments soon, albeit with significant delays. For instance, on July 26, the bank’s Izraa branch in Daraa was still processing farmers who had delivered wheat between June 1 and June 10, with payments dependent on the funds transferred by the Central Bank’s Daraa branch.

Nevertheless, the new SYP 100 billion reportedly set aside for procurement does not look like enough to cover what has already been delivered. At the official procurement price of new SYP 55,000 per ton, purchasing the 2.5 million tons collected by the end of July would cost approximately new SYP 137 billion (around USD 1 billion), roughly one-third more than the funding reportedly allocated.

That shortfall likely explains why farmers have been waiting so long to get paid and why the government is implementing a new payment process.

On 21 July, Syrian media reported that the Agricultural Cooperative Bank had introduced a new payment schedule for larger grain invoices. Payments of up to new SYP 1 million would continue to be made in full, while invoices between new SYP 1 million and 5 million would receive an initial payment of new SYP 1 million, with the balance paid in three monthly installments. Invoices exceeding new SYP 5 million would instead be settled over four monthly installments. The measure spreads out the state’s costs, but it also leaves bigger producers and traders waiting on cash right when they need it most: to repay debts, cover operating costs, and gear up for the next planting season.

Subsequent reporting from the Agricultural Cooperative Bank’s Izraa branch stated that individual beneficiaries could initially receive up to new SYP 100 million (around USD 741,000), with any remaining balance paid in three or four monthly installments. Although this amount would be unusually high for an individual farmer (equivalent to payment for more than 1,800 tons of wheat), it may apply more broadly to agricultural companies, cooperatives, traders, or other entities delivering aggregated quantities. Still, the report may have confused old and new currency denominations. Old SYP 100 million is equivalent to new SYP 1 million, matching the threshold cited in earlier reporting.

Vegetable, fruit, and other market-crop farmers had a very different season. Farmers interviewed across Rural Damascus, Quneitra, Hama, and southern Syria described an increasingly unviable cost structure: seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, fuel, electricity, machinery, and transport are priced directly or indirectly in dollars, while crops are sold in Syrian pounds into a domestic market with very weak purchasing power

They also reported widespread sales of expensive but ineffective or unlicensed pesticides, large differences in prices between agricultural pharmacies, limited access to formal credit, and heavy dependence on wholesalers and traders willing to provide inputs on credit. One watermelon producer estimated that cultivating a single dunum costs around USD 750, while the net crop sold for only about USD 337, implying a loss of more than USD 400 before accounting for all financial risks.

Farmers also blamed the absence of a clear planting calendar and continuing barriers to exports through Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf markets, where inspections, visa requirements, and lengthy border procedures can damage perishable produce before it reaches buyers. These pressures help explain why the improved wheat harvest has not translated into a comparable improvement in food security (For more on efforts to improve cross-border trade, transport, and agricultural cooperation, see our article on Syria–Lebanon economic relations.)

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Why It Matters: At the national level, the 2026 wheat season is a clear win for Syria. Procurement of more than 2.5 million tons should allow the government to rebuild strategic stocks, reduce near-term wheat imports, and protect flour and bread supplies after two poor seasons. As discussed in the June edition of this digest, stronger domestic production can also reduce demand for foreign currency and ease pressure on the trade deficit and the Syrian pound. Still, much of this year’s improvement resulted from favorable rainfall rather than a structural increase in agricultural productivity. One good season does not resolve the sector’s dependence on weather (three-quarters of Syria’s cultivated land is rainfed), costly imported inputs, weak irrigation infrastructure, limited credit, or unreliable export access.

The procurement campaign also showed where the state-led wheat system runs out of road: financially and institutionally. The authorities successfully encouraged farmers to deliver large quantities of grain, but storage capacity, transport arrangements, banking coverage, and cash availability did not expand at the same pace. If confirmed, the installment-payment circular would effectively shift part of the government’s financing burden onto farmers, who would be financing the state’s grain purchases for months at a time. That matters most for indebted producers, who need cash now to repay traders, cover household expenses, and get ready for the next planting season.

The planned reopening of Agricultural Cooperative Bank branches in Hasakah and Qamishli is therefore particularly important. The northeast supplied around two-thirds of the wheat collected nationally, yet it continues to have some of the country’s weakest formal banking coverage. Restoring the bank’s presence would help settle outstanding wheat invoices, but its longer-term significance lies in reopening access to agricultural credit and basic financial services. As argued in the May digest, the value of the Agricultural Cooperative Bank should not be assessed solely through commercial profitability: it remains one of the few institutions specifically designed to finance farmers and rural production.

But more wheat in national stocks doesn’t mean better food security at the household level. Crisis-level food insecurity is expected to persist in parts of northeastern and northwestern Syria through January 2027, with many poorer rural households using additional seasonal income to repay debts rather than increase consumption. Flooding along the Euphrates, thousands of agricultural fires, higher fuel and input costs, currency depreciation, and reduced subsidized bread allocations have further limited the benefits of the harvest. Syria may therefore have considerably more wheat this year without many farming households becoming materially better off.

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Key Developments: Return movements continued at scale during the first half of 2026. As of May 31, approximately 1.67 million Syrians have returned from neighboring countries since December 2024, alongside around 1.96 million internally displaced people who have returned to their areas of origin as of June 2026. Türkiye and Lebanon remained the principal countries of departure, followed by Jordan, while most returnees headed toward Aleppo, Idlib, Hama, Homs, Damascus, and Rural Damascus.

Returns from Türkiye accelerated further during the summer. Turkish Interior Minister Mustafa Çiftçi said in July that around 1,000 Syrians were returning each day, bringing the number returning since the fall of the Assad government to approximately 710,000, and 1.5 million since 2016, while around 2.26 million Syrians remained registered under temporary protection.

In Lebanon, General Security extended until September 30 an exemption allowing Syrians and Palestinian refugees from Syria with irregular status to leave through land crossings without paying accumulated fees or fines and without receiving entry bans. UNHCR and IOM also continued to support voluntary returns through cash assistance and organized transport, with returning refugees eligible for USD 100 per person and some vulnerable families receiving an additional USD 300 grant. Among the roughly 581,000 returnees from Lebanon between March 2 and June 30, 2026, fewer than 140,000 said they intend to remain in Syria even if conditions in Lebanon improve, implying that most of the remainder would consider going back to Lebanon if circumstances there change.

Returns from Jordan also continued to rise. By July 18, more than 208,000 UNHCR-registered Syrian refugees had returned from Jordan since December 2024, including nearly 6,900 in June alone and an additional 4,500 in the first 18 days of July.

Movements from Egypt remained more limited. Return-related case closures slowed in May because of operational and funding constraints, as well as families waiting for the school year to end, although return activity during the first five months of 2026 remained above 2025 levels. Interestingly, departures are beginning to reshape the economic networks of Syrians who remained in Egypt. Syrian women operating home-based catering, cleaning, childcare, and tutoring businesses reported shrinking customer bases, stronger competition, and falling incomes, with some food producers receiving only one or two orders per week.

Overall, decisions to return are shaped by family reunification and perceived improvements inside Syria, but also by conflict, worsening economic conditions, and increasingly restrictive protection environments in host countries. Still, conditions after return remain the central concern.

A study of 425 refugee and IDP returnees across seven governorates found that 91 percent arrived in communities missing essential services, 71 percent were living in damaged housing, 44 percent encountered conditions worse than expected, and only 18 percent received sufficient support during the return process. Despite the return of nearly two million internally displaced Syrians, more than 5.5 million people remained internally displaced, including approximately 1.2 million living in formal or informal camps.

As for the Syrian government, its “Syria Without Camps” initiative aims to support the closure of displacement camps and provide safer and more durable accommodation by the end of 2027. Yet, the scale of the challenge remains considerable: an assessment in Idlib alone identified 736 camps accommodating around 91,000 families. Housing, service, livelihood, documentation, and funding gaps continue to limit the pace at which displaced families can return sustainably.

Yet, following a July visit to Syria, UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons Paula Gaviria Betancur welcomed the government’s commitment to ending camp-based displacement but warned that camp closures must result from durable, rights-based solutions rather than substitute for them. She emphasized that sustainable returns would require housing and property protections, mine clearance, livelihoods, functioning services, and measures to prevent secondary displacement.

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Why It Matters: The situation of Syrian refugees in Türkiye warrants particular attention. Ankara increasingly appears to be pursuing a dual-track transition away from open-ended temporary protection: facilitating the voluntary return of Syrians who wish or need to go back, while gradually regularizing those who have become embedded in—and continue to contribute to—the Turkish economy. The June announcement exempting Syrians under Temporary Protection from work permit requirements is particularly significant because it constitutes an explicit recognition that Syrian workers fill structural labor shortages. Although employment is still expected to be formally registered, removing the work permit requirement should substantially lower barriers to formal employment. While the legal basis for such exemptions dates back to an amendment published in the Turkish Official Gazette in October 2024, the June 2026 decision is reportedly its first broad application to Syrians under Temporary Protection (TP).

The June decision follows the January 2026 healthcare reform, which ended broadly automatic health coverage for Syrians under TP and tied comprehensive care instead to formal employment through the Social Security Institution (SGK), private insurance, or means-tested assistance.

Read together, the two moves suggest Ankara is shifting away from TP status as the basis for access to benefits, and toward formal labor-market participation, while making that participation easier to achieve. The likely goal is twofold: keep economically active Syrians whose skills the Turkish economy relies on, and push more Syrian employment into the formal system, which would also widen the pool of workers and employers paying into SGK at a moment when the fund is under real strain.

International donors, per sources who spoke to The Syria Dispatch, are increasingly drawing the same distinction: treating support for voluntary return and investment in long-term integration as separate tracks, on the assumption that not all displacement will reverse anytime soon. EU programming for 2025–2027 reflects that split, earmarking funds for voluntary returns while still investing heavily in education, healthcare, and livelihoods for refugees expected to stay in Turkey for the medium-term.

In a similar vein, Jordan also pursues a partial integration policy aimed at integrating Syrian refugees into the labor market, primarily through work permits issued under the Jordan Compact, an initiative launched jointly by the Jordanian government and the EU in 2016.

In June, Jordan introduced a temporary regularization program for non-Jordanian workers, offering a 50 percent reduction in accumulated work-permit fees from previous periods and waiving certain penalties for workers and employers who regularize their status by September 30. The measure is likely to benefit Syrian workers significantly, although it applies to non-Jordanian labor more broadly, and should also support the Jordanian labor market, given the country’s longstanding dependence on foreign labor. Moreover, in July 2026, Jordan eased entry requirements for Syrian investors by extending visa facilitations to the spouses and children of eligible Syrian entrepreneurs, signaling an effort to sustain cross-border economic ties despite expectations of refugee returns. This transition is nevertheless taking place under mounting financial pressure. As of June 2026, UNHCR’s Jordan operation faced a funding gap of more than USD 200 million, covering only around 28 percent of its requirements.

Unlike Türkiye and Jordan, Lebanon continues to pursue a predominantly return-oriented policy, combining administrative incentives for departure with tighter enforcement of residency rules. It has nevertheless maintained limited, time-bound avenues for regularizing Syrian workers, reflecting the continued dependence of sectors such as agriculture and construction on Syrian labor. In line with this dependence, the Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Agriculture are reportedly reviewing a proposal to register Syrian agricultural workers through the National Farmers’ Registry.

Across the region, return decisions reflect both changing conditions inside Syria and deteriorating alternatives in host countries. Many Syrians are returning not only because they perceive greater safety or hope for family reunification, but because the economic and legal conditions sustaining their displacement have narrowed. Some formally “voluntary” returns are therefore better understood as the least untenable option available. Humanitarian organizations consulted by The Syria Dispatch similarly identified rising living costs, irregular employment, declining access to healthcare, documentation problems, and family reunification as major drivers of return, often outweighing purely security-related considerations.

Inside Syria, returning citizens can restore skills, labor, consumption, entrepreneurial activity, and family networks. Yet the country’s capacity to absorb returnees is not keeping pace with the scale of arrivals: as noted above, the large majority arrived in communities lacking essential services or housing in poor condition. More than 80 percent were also unable to find work despite often possessing substantial prior experience.

In some areas, accelerated returns are already intensifying pre-existing pressures. Residential rents reportedly increased by 50–100 percent in parts of Homs following the arrival of returnees. In Damascus and surrounding areas, additional families are returning to communities where water, electricity, sewage systems, roads, and schools were already severely overstretched. In Al-Hajar al-Aswad, thousands of families have returned despite extensive infrastructure damage, while residents in Tal Kalakh have reported growing competition over school places, fuel allocations, housing, and employment.

The principal challenge is therefore no longer simply facilitating return, but ensuring that returns remain sustainable and do not instead produce renewed poverty, social tensions, or secondary displacement inside Syria.

*This article benefited from additional research and analytical support from Ekin Keleş.

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Key Developments: French President Emmanuel Macron visited Syria on July 6–7, becoming the first head of state from the European Union to travel to the country since the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024. The visit followed Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa’s trip to Paris in May 2025 and included bilateral talks, meetings with Syrian civil-society representatives, and a French-Syrian economic forum focused on reconstruction and strategic regional corridors.

During the visit, Syria and France agreed to exchange ambassadors after a 14-year interruption in full diplomatic relations, with plans to reopen the French embassy in January 2027, according to diplomatic sources speaking with The Syria Dispatch. Paris and Damascus also signed a framework agreement to expand bilateral cooperation across political, economic, and institutional fields. France further announced that more than EUR 50 million recovered from assets linked to Rifaat al-Assad would be returned through development projects benefiting the Syrian population.

The economic component of the visit covered transport and logistics, aviation, institutional and financial support, health, water and energy infrastructure, higher education, investment law, and bilateral trade (see table at the end of the article).

One of the principal agreements expanded the role of the French shipping and logistics group CMA CGM beyond its existing operation and development of the Latakia container terminal. President al-Sharaa said the company had committed an additional EUR 200 million to the terminal. The new partnership covers the continued development of dry ports in Damascus and Aleppo, an integrated logistics zone at the Nassib border crossing, the rehabilitation of railway connections between Syria’s seaports and inland logistics centers, and cooperation in air-cargo handling and marketing. The partnership builds on CMA CGM’s 30-year agreement, signed in May 2025, to develop and operate the Latakia container terminal through planned investments of EUR 230 million.

Civil aviation cooperation was also expanded through a declaration of intent between Syria’s General Authority for Civil Aviation and the French Ministry of Transport. Follow-up discussions were held later in the month, when France’s Chargé d’Affaires, Jean-Baptiste Faivre, met Omar al-Hosari, director of the Syrian civil-aviation authority. Al-Hosari also announced the signing of a memorandum with Thales to modernize air-traffic management, communications, navigation, and surveillance systems. The Syrian Aviation Holding Company, formerly Syrian Arab Airlines, also signed a strategic partnership with CMA CGM Air Cargo covering cargo-aircraft operations, technical expertise, and logistics services. Syrian civil-aviation authorities separately announced that procedures were in their final stages for the acquisition of eight Airbus aircraft, which are expected to enter service progressively between the final quarter of 2026 and the first quarter of 2027.

In the financial sector, the Central Bank of Syria announced the reactivation of its account with the Banque de France and the restoration of direct institutional relations between the two central banks. The Central Bank of Syria and Expertise France also signed a memorandum covering institutional strengthening, technical assistance, and capacity-building. Cooperation announced during the visit further included French support for the restoration of Syrian financial institutions, reconstruction financing, and the re-establishment of banking services and access to credit. President Macron also said France was prepared to support the reconstruction of Syria’s payment, clearing, and financial systems; cooperation with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF); banking-sector restructuring; and Syria’s work with the International Monetary Fund and, eventually, the Paris Club on legacy debt.

Other agreements covered development, reconstruction, health, and institutional capacity-building through Expertise France and the French Development Agency (AFD). French company NovaKamp signed a protocol concerning modular water-treatment and energy solutions in Homs. The Syrian Investment Authority signed a memorandum with French law firm Gide Loyrette Nouel covering legal and institutional cooperation related to the investment environment. The Ministry of Higher Education signed a memorandum with Ellipse Projects concerning the development of university hospitals and medical-training institutions. It should be noted that all of NovaKamp, Gide Loyrette Nouel, and Ellipse Projects participated in the French business delegation that visited Syria in October 2025.

Energy and regional connectivity also featured in the discussions. President Macron said TotalEnergies was considering activities related to oil and gas, renewable energy, regional energy transit, and the possible rehabilitation of the Kirkuk–Baniyas corridor. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot subsequently described Syria as a possible alternative route for energy shipments amid disruptions affecting the Strait of Hormuz.

In private-sector development, Proparco, the AFD Group’s private-sector financing arm, also advanced discussions on a possible return to Syria. According to a French official speaking to The Syria Dispatch, the institution is currently examining several potential projects with the European Union, including support for microfinance and small and medium-sized enterprises, although no investments have yet been formally announced. President Macron also said that France could eventually support project preparation in Syria through the Fonds d’étude et d’aide au secteur privé (FASEP).

Finally, the Conseil d’Affaires Franco-Syrien (CAFSY) and MEDEF International’s Conseil d’Entreprises France-Syrie (CEFS) signed a cooperation agreement to support French companies seeking to enter the Syrian market or expand their activities in the country.

The visit also included the return of 23 Syrian archaeological objects that had been loaned to the Arab World Institute in Paris in 2010 and had remained in France after bilateral diplomatic relations were suspended. The objects, originating from museums in Damascus, Aleppo, Latakia, and Palmyra, were transported to Syria aboard the French presidential aircraft and transferred to the National Museum in Damascus.

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Why It Matters: France’s return to Damascus carries particular historical significance. French-Syrian relations (greatly described by Manon-Nour Tannous’ fantastic book ‘Chirac, Assad et les autres’) have long been marked by a tension between proximity and mistrust: France’s mandate-era legacy left a lasting political and cultural imprint, while also fostering enduring suspicion of French interventionism. After independence, Paris sought to preserve influence through its broader Middle East strategy, maintaining relations with Hafez al-Assad despite recurring disagreements and later attempting to reintegrate Bashar al-Assad into international diplomacy before relations collapsed following the 2011 uprising.

Until the collapse of the Assad regime, France had remained one of the most consistent European supporters of the Syrian opposition, maintaining its refusal to normalize relations with Assad, welcoming the defector known as Caesar, and pursuing legal cases against senior regime figures. As journalist Wassim Nasr has argued, this consistency helped build credibility with Syria’s new authorities. President Macron’s early engagement with President al-Sharaa, including becoming the first European leader to speak with him by telephone and hosting his first visit to a European capital, further underlined the privileged nature of the relationship.

Still, for all the progress on the political and diplomatic front, the commercial relationship between the two countries has yet to catch up, but not for lack of effort by President Macron and French diplomats to fast-track ties with the new Syrian government. CMA CGM may be behind the largest of the few investment projects actually moving forward, but that has more to do with the company’s long history in Syria (the company has operated in Syria since 2009) than with any new related developments. In fact, the MEDEF business delegation that visited Syria in October 2025 is a useful reminder of how this can go: barely any of the agreements signed at that time materialized.

Thus, President Macron’s visit was, in part, an attempt to make up for that lost time (comparatively to other countries with more advanced economic, commericla and political relations with Damascus) through presidential diplomacy, the exchange of ambassadors, and a highly visible batch of commercial and institutional agreements. Worth noting, though: most of what was signed was technical and developmental rather than straightforwardly commercial. Given the underlying obstacles still impeding economic recovery, French officials described the visit to The Syria Dispatch as a chance to move past political symbolism and start addressing the practical obstacles slowing Syria’s recovery. According to the same source, President Macron raised business-environment issues that continue to impede business dealings in Syria directly with President al-Sharaa.

In fact, President Macron later argued that attracting investment starts with a “shock of confidence,” reliable banking, functioning payment systems, debt restructuring, anti-money laundering reform, and stronger financial governance. In other words, France seems to see institutional reform, not big financial pledges, as the real prerequisite for reconstruction.

For French business interests to materialize in Syria, one French official told The Syria Dispatch, sustained technical assistance is needed in the form of helping reform the financial sector and pulling Syria further into international financial and trade systems. Paris sees its edge not just in flagship companies like CMA CGM or TotalEnergies, but in institutions, such as the Banque de France, Expertise France, AFD, the French Treasury, whose job is rebuilding the institutional groundwork that longer-term private investment needs.

Given the current regional context, President Macron also framed reconstruction as a means, not an end, to larger ambitions for Syria. He tied the country’s recovery to a bigger vision: new logistics, energy, and digital corridors linking the Gulf and Europe. That overlap between French and Syrian strategic thinking is a big part of why transport, ports, civil aviation, and energy dominated the agreements signed during the visit.

In the end, whether any of this matters will come down to implementation. French companies might have connections, sector expertise, and political backing, but they are facing the same headwinds as everyone else investing in Syria: weak banking links, legal uncertainty, thin purchasing power, patchy infrastructure, and a bureaucracy still not equipped to prepare and run complex projects.

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For nearly fifteen years, Professor Wendy Pearlman has documented the experiences of Syrians living through revolution, war, displacement, and exile. Her 2017 book, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled, traced Syrians’ political awakening and the transformation of the uprising, while The Home I Worked to Make explored how displaced Syrians rebuilt their lives, identities, and sense of belonging across the world. Following the fall of the Assad regime and her return to Syria, Pearlman is now confronting a third and still-unfolding chapter. In this interview with The Syria Dispatch, she discusses the dangers of declaring Syria’s story finished, the complex relationships between those who stayed and those who left, why “return” is often a misleading word, and how encountering Syria as an actual place is reshaping her work as a researcher.

(Please note that Substack allows readers to listen to articles by clicking the “play” button in the top-right corner of the article.)

A Third Phase in the Syrian Story

The Syria Dispatch: Your work has moved from documenting Syrians’ political awakening in We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled to following displacement and home-making in The Home I Worked to Make. Has Assad’s fall opened a third phase in your work? What are you trying to understand now that neither of those books could have asked?

Wendy Pearlman: This new phase poses questions that I did not even imagine being able to ask, and that I think most of the people I interviewed did not imagine they might confront in their own lives.

I began interviewing displaced Syrians in 2012. I was interested in the Syrian uprising. And as I felt that it was too dangerous, or I was too afraid, to go inside Syria, I began interviewing Syrians who had left the country.

My interviews are very open-ended. I always say that I ask people two questions: “Do I have your permission to record?” and “Tell me about yourself.” And then people talk. My early interviews focused on fear, breaking the barrier of fear, and how people came to participate in protests. When I started the first book, I did not think there would be a second one. The story was “the uprising.” The uprising became a war, and the war led to displacement. That’s where the first book ends. I did not think that displacement would become so protracted, but as it did, new questions emerged about exile, home, and belonging. And when people spoke about belonging, they were not simply asking whether Syria was still home or whether a new place had become home. They were also saying: the world that I once knew has been shattered. Who am I amid all of this?

That is the focus of the stories in The Home I Worked to Make. It is a book about migration and exile, but also about making meaning in a context that people who identified with the uprising were regarding as defeat. It was written at a time when people were saying that Assad had “won”: the revolution had been defeated, the conflict was frozen, countries were beginning to normalize with Assad, and he seemed to have survived this tremendous challenge to his rule. One of the themes of the book is about moving forward in the face of that political reality. So, it is a heavy book that captures something of the mood of that time.

When the regime fell, it became clear that it would be premature to end there. A whole new and incredibly different chapter had opened. So, I said to myself, “Now these two books need to become a trilogy.”

The second book now makes more sense as the middle phase of the story: between the beginning of the revolution and the end of Assad. I am now happy that the second book captures what those years were like for so many Syrians, because that could otherwise get lost between the excitement of the revolution’s beginning and all the messiness of the current moment.

I still do not know what a third book about post-Assad experiences will look like because the situation is still tremendously dynamic, complex, and unclear.

People often speak of books having a narrative arc. My first book of Syrian interviews had a very clear arc from authoritarianism to the height of the revolution, and then to militarization, war, and displacement. The second book starts with what compelled someone to leave home and then passes through the stages of journeying, searching, losing, building, and gradually feeling that one might be in a place where it is possible to move forward.

I do not know what the narrative arc of the post-Assad era is. We know the beginning: the military offensive and the fall of the regime. But if I had to draw the shape of Syrian politics since December 8, 2024, I do not know what kind of line I would draw. Is it a curve? Does it go up and down like the heartbeat on a heart monitor?

Right now, we are in the middle of it. It is hard to know where the train is headed when you are on the train, and it is moving very fast. So, I might be working on this third book for several years to come. For now, my hope is simply to conduct as many interviews as I possibly can. This can be my call: I’m excited to speak with any Syrian, anywhere in the world, who might be interested in telling their story or sharing their perspective. I want to connect and collect, and then discover how the contours of the story become clearer with time.

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The Danger of Declaring an Ending Too Soon

The Syria Dispatch: You said that “it would be premature to end [the story] there,” which resonates with what you wrote in the introduction to The Home I Worked to Make. You emphasized that these stories, Syrians’ stories, have not ended. Assad’s fall may nevertheless tempt observers to impose an ending on the Syrian revolution and war: victory, return, reconstruction, or reconciliation. Which ending are people most in danger of declaring too soon?

Wendy Pearlman: I think we can definitively say that the Assad regime has ended and that we are in a post-Assad moment. But this is a political transition, and political transitions are very complicated. They are not necessarily linear. Transitions from authoritarianism do not necessarily move from authoritarianism to democracy.

There are all sorts of trajectories that many Syrians, and many of us watching Syria, hope Syria will experience: from authoritarianism to a pluralistic, democratic country governed by the rule of law and respect for human rights; from conflict to civil peace; from economic devastation to reconstruction and recovery; and from displacement to return—for those who want to return.

These trajectories may or may not happen in that way. Even if things eventually move in those directions, there may be stops, reversals, circularities, one step forward and many steps back. It could be a very long-term process. There is still a great deal to be contested and for Syrians to figure out together.

There are questions of national identity: What does it mean to be Syrian? There are questions of economic recovery: How will it happen, and on what terms?

Return is also a major question. Some people who were displaced have already returned. Some have not yet returned and want to return. Some do not. Some have returned and are wondering whether they made the right decision.

Human lives are so complex that there is no automatic path that is best for everyone. There is no single redemptive narrative in which what was wrong in the past will now be corrected in one specific way. These things will be worked out through interactive and complicated processes that are not predetermined.

Hope, Disappointment, and the Shape of the Post-Assad Story

The Syria Dispatch: There are indeed “all sorts of trajectories that many [Syrians] hope Syria will experience.” Thus, could this third phase of your work ultimately be a book about hope, about what Syrians hoped Assad’s fall would make possible?

Wendy Pearlman: There is certainly hope. Most people I speak with say that the worst is behind them and that nothing can be as bad as Assad. In that sense, there is absolutely a sense of possibility. Things are no longer stuck and can only get better than what they were.

During the early days after Assad fell, people asked: Are you optimistic or pessimistic? Many still struggle with that question. And as we speak in July 2026, you can talk to many Syrians who will speak about disappointment.

Those disappointments take many forms. There is disappointment with the slowness of economic recovery, inflation, the lack of jobs, the slow restoration of basic services such as electricity and water, and the slow pace of rebuilding housing.

There is tremendous pain caused by the violence that has happened since December 8, from sporadic and isolated incidents of kidnappings and killings to the sectarian massacres on the coast in March and in Suwayda in July. Identity-based violence has crushed some people’s hopes of what the post-Assad era would be. Disappointment is too mild a word to describe that.

There is hate speech and sectarian incitement online, and the fractures and divisions among citizens. Something I hear many Syrians speak about is the breakdown of friendships and close relationships over these issues, and especially over people’s reactions to the massacres. There are people who they love, who might once have been comrades in the revolution, and now they have been shocked at the things they have said and don’t feel like they can sustain those relationships anymore.

There is so much hope, but there is also already a great deal of pain. I think this pain needs to be acknowledged if the country is to move forward.

And this says nothing of people’s frustration with the slow pace of transitional justice and progress on the very difficult issue of getting information on the fate of people who were forcibly disappeared. The pain of family members still searching for their loved ones is unbearable. So, hope is an essential part of this phase, but there is also fear, sadness, and so much uncertainty.

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Can Syrians Still Build a Collective Narrative?

The Syria Dispatch: You have highlighted that Syrians emerged from the past fifteen years with profoundly different experiences. This echoes what Rime Allaf argued in a previous interview with The Syria Dispatch: that even Syrians who opposed the old regime often struggle to understand one another because they lived through completely different realities. In the absence of a single shared story, what might still allow Syrians to rebuild a common sense of belonging?

Wendy Pearlman: I think there are so many different ways of thinking about differences within Syrian society. There are differences of sect and ethno-religious background, but also between those who left and those who stayed, those who are staying outside and those who came back, those who lived under regime control and those who lived under rebel control, people in cities and people in the countryside, and people with different class backgrounds, ideologies, and levels of religiosity.

It is a tremendously complex landscape of people with different experiences who, because of politics, war, and distance, have not had full opportunity to encounter each other and understand one another’s experiences.

That is both the challenge and, potentially, the beauty and hope of this moment. If people can listen to one another, I imagine they will discover, first of all, that everyone has suffered.

Perhaps people have suffered different things in different ways. But I do not think anyone has made it through this reality that we call Assadism and this brutal war without some form of pain, loss, fear, and being denied something of their dignity.

What is dangerous is when suffering becomes a competition or a hierarchy: that is, when the focus is on who suffered most, or when acknowledging someone else’s suffering is seen as somehow diminishing one’s own.

It might sound very dark to say that suffering is a kind of common ground. But it can also be a space for healing. People who have suffered want what happened to them to be acknowledged and recognized. That is part of transitional justice. It is part of moving forward.

The idea here is not to create a new national identity based on suffering, but to cultivate a kind of dialogue that can allow people to meet one another, understand one another’s experiences, and build the empathy, sympathy, and respect that enable them to say: We are part of the same society, and there is space for all of us.

Those Who Left and Those Who Stayed

The Syria Dispatch: There are also important differences between those who left Syria and those who remained. Yet many displaced Syrians also shared remarkably similar experiences of exile. As they visit or move back, they are encountering people who experienced the past fifteen years very differently. What are they discovering about one another?

Wendy Pearlman: Every individual is unique, and therefore every story of displacement is unique. But certain themes and stages are shared by many people who were forced to leave.

There is the experience of leaving, how people got out, the journey itself, the danger, the smuggling, the expense, the risk, and the crossing of borders. Some people were able to board a plane and fly far away, but many landed first in a country neighboring Syria. Most people spent some time in Türkiye, Lebanon, or Jordan and, to a lesser degree, Iraq or Egypt.

Even people who eventually went further to Europe, North America, or Australia often still had a “Türkiye phase” or a “Lebanon phase” that allows them to understand the experiences of those who remained in those countries.

There are shared questions about dealing with the host society, discrimination and prejudice, learning a new language, finding one’s way, trying to get children into school, and finding work; probably work that was not what one was trained to do, and that one might feel was beneath their professional qualifications. You might have a university degree and be working in a textile factory in Türkiye. Or you might reach somewhere where your degree can be recognized, where you can find a path to financial and legal stability and, if you are lucky, eventually obtain another passport.

Those are phases of displacement that different people experienced in different ways, along with homesickness and ghorba (غربة).

Many people outside Syria had family members inside with whom they spoke to daily and, because of video calling, perhaps saw regularly on their screens. That technological connection could give people a sense that they were in close contact. But family members living in Syria might not have communicated certain things because they were afraid to speak openly on the phone, or because they did not want their loved ones abroad to worry, or because there were things that are simply impossible to put into words.

But now, as people from outside come back, whether to visit or to move permanently, there is a moment of discovering what they knew and what they did not know. In the interviews that I am gathering now, people talk about what they discovered in a new way when they arrived in the country and saw things with their own eyes.

For example, people describe being surprised by the degree of hardship. Everyone knows the statistics about the devastation of the country, the billions of dollars needed for reconstruction, and the hundreds of thousands of buildings that have been destroyed. Everyone has seen videos and photographs. But there is nothing like seeing it with your own eyes: kilometer after kilometer of destruction in some areas.

There are also the small details of daily life. I have heard many people say that, before returning, they did not fully realize what it was like to live without electricity or hot water. They knew these things intellectually: there is no electricity, there is no water. But they arrive and realize: my mother has been showering in cold water for years or not bathing at all. Now I understand what that means.

I heard an interesting anecdote from many Syrians who returned during the first months after Assad’s fall. They would arrive at their parents’ or relatives’ homes and find that all sorts of things were broken and had not been repaired.

They would say: “Mom, this window is broken and cold air is coming in. Why don’t you fix it? This has not been repaired in fifteen years.”

Those who stayed might be thinking: First, we do not have the resources to repair these things. Second, why bother fixing it? It is just going to get broken again. Third, perhaps there was no longer a sense of the future that made a long-term investment in fixing those types of things feel worthwhile.

For somebody coming from outside who had not been living in that reality, this could be a shock. These small details provide windows into the world of the person who remained: What was their life like? How did they see themselves in the world? How did they see their own rights, dignity, and aspirations?

So, I think there is a process of mutual discovery between those who left and those who stayed. People are discovering one another and discovering themselves.

The crucial thing, I think, is that all people have been changed by what Syria endured. It might be easier for us to imagine how somebody who was displaced changed because they were forced to deal with a new society, learn a new language, confront a new environment, and adapt. Someone who had to survive in Türkiye and then Germany is obviously going to be a changed person.

It is easy to imagine that those who remained instead became stuck—that they were preserved in formaldehyde. But, of course, those who stayed also changed with every phase of politics, war, and economic crisis.

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Is “Return” Really Return?

The Syria Dispatch: Syrians may cross back into the same country or town, but they are not returning to the same neighborhoods, institutions, family structures, or versions of themselves. Does the word “return” mislead us? Could going back to Syria be understood as another form of migration?

Wendy Pearlman: You have taken the words right out of my mouth. “Return” is not simply an oversimplification. It is actually misleading.

“Return” implies going back to what was. And that is not possible. In any context, no person can simply return to the past. And in the Syrian context, there are the layers of other change that have been forced upon people. Given the scale of destruction, a displaced person who is “returning” may find that their house no longer exists. Their entire neighborhood or town might have been so badly destroyed that they no longer exist as it once did. Many of the people who lived there and made it the community it was might have also been forced to leave, or people who were forced to leave their homes elsewhere might have relocated there.

Materially and socially, the community might have changed. And you have changed as a person, and whoever remained has also changed. And you are entering a political and social reality that is changing by the minute. Everything is in flux: a political system is forming itself, laws and institutions are being created, and access to power and resources is shifting.

“Return” also becomes a microcosm for many internal debates. Displaced Syrians are grappling with incredibly difficult decisions about where they and their families should make their lives. They are dealing with nostalgia, family obligations, economic challenges, and uncertainty about where Syria is headed and what their lives might be like if they move there.

There are also enormous questions of identity: Who am I? How have I changed? Where do I feel that I belong after a decade or more outside the country? Where will I be able to achieve my aspirations? Where do I feel most at peace?

It is asking a lot of the word “return” to capture all of this. And on top of that, the word is problematic because it has become such a buzzword in countries with large populations of displaced Syrians. These are often countries that are quite eager to get rid of their refugee populations.

We see anti-refugee and anti-migrant sentiment all over the world. We see political parties competing over who can be most anti-refugee, and opinion polls showing that people want refugees and migrants to “go home.” Return is a political football that politicians kick around.

In Türkiye, Lebanon, and across Europe, you hear people asking, “Will Syrians return?” It is often a disguised way of saying: How do we get rid of the refugees whom we did not want in the first place?

It would be interesting to eliminate the word return and instead say “migrate again.” Instead of asking Syrians in Türkiye, “Are you going to return home?” people could ask, “Are you going to migrate again?”

At least that would acknowledge that what people are doing is actually very hard. It is as difficult as another migration. People are not simply going back to where they were and picking up life from where they left it. They are going to a new place, as a new person, to build a new life.

“Return” implies that this is easy. You simply fall backward. It does not take effort, initiative, creation, or rebuilding. It is the default right option; things naturally go back to where they are supposed to be.

In reality, it is an undertaking of creation, change, and building, no less than what it took for people to establish their lives in exile in the first place. It is not easy. Nor is it necessarily any more natural than remaining where one was forced to seek refuge.

Return should not be assumed to be what people want, what they need, or what is best for them. That is a decision people must be able to make for themselves.

Can a Homeland Be Inherited?

The Syria Dispatch: In “Dear Syria,” you describe children who have moved with their parents to what is, for them, an unfamiliar country. Can a homeland be inherited? What might Syria mean to a generation whose connection to it was formed mainly through family stories, language, food, loss, and memory?

Wendy Pearlman: Some children were born in Syria but left at such a young age that they do not have clear memories. Young adults might have only bad memories of violence, war, and fear.

And millions of children were born abroad, meaning that they have never set foot in Syria. They would be “returning” to where they have never been. The country of exile is the only home they have ever really known. That is another reason to criticize the language suggesting that refugees should simply “go home.”

These children might not speak Arabic, or their Arabic might not be at the level they need for school. They are moving from one school system and curriculum to another. They may be going from one quality of life and set of norms about their physical environment to another, from having electricity to not having electricity, or from living somewhere with parks to somewhere with rubble and destruction.

On the other hand, they might be discovering an entire extended family that they did not have during displacement, and that might be wonderful. They might be relieved to leave a situation of prejudice, discrimination, and bullying.

For example, last summer, I spoke with school-age Syrian boys in Türkiye who could not wait to move to Syria with their families, even though they had no memories of Syria. The bullying in Türkiye was so severe that they simply could not stand living there anymore.

So just as it might be difficult moving to Syria for the first time, these children might also be leaving extraordinarily difficult circumstances. That is the reality of a generation that has been forced to confront so much hardship at such a young age, and from so many different directions.

The larger questions—what does homeland mean, and what does home mean?—are terrific questions. What I came to appreciate in writing The Home I Worked to Make is that home is a tremendously dynamic and multidimensional concept.

For some people, home is a place. For others, home is not a place; it is a feeling, people, experiences, memories, or a sense of comfort or possibility.

Home is always changing. That is true not only for a Syrian who has experienced dramatic displacement and war, but for any person in any setting. Whatever home meant to you as a child might be different from what it means at later stages of your life.

Home and homeland will continue to change for this generation of refugee children as well. What they are experiencing now might mean something completely different to them in five or ten years.

From an Imagined Syria to Syria as an Actual Place

The Syria Dispatch: You visited Syria in 2008 and then did not return until 2025. What was it like to visit Syria after Assad’s fall?

Wendy Pearlman: When I returned in 2025, many Syrians asked me: “What has changed since 2008? What do you see differently?” But my frame of reference was not the Syria I had visited in 2008. I was comparing the Syria that I was discovering in 2025 with the Syria I had constructed in my imagination after fourteen years of interviewing Syrians abroad.

I came to know Syria, or to feel like I knew Syria, through the interviews I conducted. The 2008 visit was a relatively short touristic trip. It did not leave the impression on me that years and years of talking to Syrians did.

As I write about in my essay “Dear Syria,” those conversations led me to construct a kind of imagined Syria in my mind. Syria became larger than life to me. Every aspect of it was heavy with the meaning of war, dictatorship, and revolution.

That is why it felt so important to see Syria with my own eyes, and why it remains important to continue going back: to develop a relationship with Syria as an actual place where people live, and not only as the scene of these enormous political struggles.

Of course, it should not be a surprise that Syria is also a place of everyday life. But knowing that and experiencing it firsthand are emotionally different. It is an incredible privilege for me to be able to experience that now.

How Entering Syria Changes the Research

The Syria Dispatch: Has being able to experience Syria directly changed how you approach the country as a researcher, the kinds of questions you ask, the conclusions you draw, or the way you interpret the testimonies you gathered abroad?

Wendy Pearlman: I think I am still figuring that out. I am still in a state of semi-shock that all of this is possible.

I have spoken with Syrians who say that even now they sometimes wake up and cannot believe that it really happened. They ask themselves: Is Assad really gone? Absorbing the enormity of it is a gradual process.

For all those years, I knew that basing my research on only interviews with Syrians who had left the country was incomplete. In my academic work, I wrote many times that the people I interviewed were not a representative sample of the Syrian polity.

But it was still easy to slip from interviewing only displaced persons to drawing conclusions or making claims about Syria as a whole.

My first book is composed entirely of interviews with Syrians who left the country, but it is a book about the uprising and the war, in general. It tries to be a book about Syria. Now I have to take a step back and ask: How might the book have been different if it included the voices of people who remained? What did I miss? What might I have misunderstood? What questions did I fail to ask? What stories did I not hear?

Everyone I interviewed had spent most of their lives in Syria. But when they described their experiences in Syria, they were not narrating their actual lives at that moment. They were narrating memories of a life different from the one they were currently living. They were speaking from the outside. Did being outside color their memories? Unconsciously or consciously, did it shape what they said or did not say to me?

Also, I was not able to see them living their lives in Syria. I only had their stories—the narratives that they chose to put into words.

I could observe aspects of their lives in Türkiye, Lebanon, Jordan, Germany, and the other places where I met them. I could develop a feeling for displaced communities because that was something I could experience with all my senses. I could ride minibusses, visit homes, hear conversations, and see people in the contexts that they were living in.

But when they described their lives in Syria, all I had were words. That is not at all about people being honest or dishonest. It’s simply about the complexity of memory, narration, and place.

I still need to grapple with whether there are conclusions or ideas that I developed over the years that I now need to reevaluate. I know there are gaps in my knowledge and understanding. I am still discovering what those gaps are, and I think I need to spend much more time in Syria to appreciate them.

When going to Syria was not an option, it was perhaps easier to know intellectually that these gaps existed but ignore them. Now, there is no excuse to ignore them. You can at least try to fill them.

That is both a wonderful opportunity and an obligation for many of us who analyze and research Syria for a living.

We are deeply grateful to Professor Wendy Pearlman for her time, openness, and generosity throughout this conversation.

• Readers interested in exploring her work further can begin with her books We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria, The Home I Worked to Make: Voices from the New Syrian Diaspora, and Muzoon: A Syrian Refugee Speaks Out.

• Her recent writing on post-Assad Syria includes the personal essay “Dear Syria …”; “Syria One Year After Assad,” co-authored with André Bank and Marc Lynch as part of the wider POMEPS volume Syria After Assad; From ‘Refugee Crisis’ to ‘Integration’ to ‘Return’? Conceptual Lenses in the Study of Syrian Displacement and Diasporisation, published in International Migration; Genocide in Syria, Gaza, and Beyond: An interview with Yassin al-Haj Saleh, published in the Journal of Genocide Research.

• Her recent recorded discussions include “Understanding Syria”, “Making Sense of Syria”, and a book talk on The Home I Worked to Make.

• A fuller collection of her books, essays, and public-facing writing, academic research, and interviews is available on her website.

Editor’s Note

Welcome to the June 2026 edition of the Syria Monthly Economic Digest.

If May was about openings, June was about friction. The Syrian pound wobbled through a rough first half of the month before the Central Bank stepped in with back-to-back devaluations to close the gap with the black market. The currency-replacement deadline (extended twice already) finally started reaching Hasakah, months after the rest of the country. And a strong wheat harvest ran into a bottleneck we first flagged in May: storage overflowing, payments delayed, and farmers once again carrying the cost of a system still catching up to its own ambitions.

That friction spilled into open protest in Qamishli, where retirees demanding overdue pensions were joined within days by residents furious over fuel prices, electricity cuts, and a governorate that ships oil out every day while running its own generators short. It’s a pattern worth sitting with: Hasakah sits on some of Syria’s richest energy and agricultural resources, and among its weakest services… June made that contradiction hard to ignore.

Not everything this month was about strain. Foreign oil majors kept signing deals, a regional rail corridor linking Türkiye to the Gulf through Syria took real shape, and Syrian Arab Airlines flew to Amsterdam for the first time in over a decade—even if the fine print on who’s actually flying the plane is more complicated than the headline suggests. Deir Ezzor got a real down payment on redevelopment too: bridges, transformers, and a promise to move oil-sector jobs closer to the fields that produce them.

Taken together, June is the clearest evidence yet of something May only hinted at: Syria’s national-level reintegration is moving faster than its ability to make that progress felt evenly, in Hasakah as much as in Damascus. That’s the story this digest will keep following.

Thanks for reading.

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About the Syria Monthly Economic Digest

The Syria Monthly Economic Digest is a monthly publication by The Syria Dispatch that tracks the political and economic developments shaping Syria’s transition.

Each edition focuses on the developments that we believe matter most over the past month—not every headline, but the ones that reveal something important about where the country is heading. These may include policy decisions, investment announcements, energy and infrastructure projects, banking and monetary reforms, trade and reconstruction, property rights disputes, public services, and the evolving relationship between the Syrian state, society, and external actors.

The format is straightforward. Each article begins with a summary of what happened, followed by a “Why It Matters” section that provides additional context, background, and analysis.

The digest is written for readers who want a structured, analytical overview of Syria’s transition, including policymakers, researchers, journalists, diplomats, development practitioners, investors, civil society actors, and anyone interested in the country’s political economy.

It is not intended to be exhaustive, nor does it replace daily news coverage. Instead, it offers a monthly snapshot of the developments that we believe deserve closer attention and a better understanding of how they fit into Syria’s broader transition.

If you have comments, corrections, suggestions, or would like to collaborate, we would be delighted to hear from you.

Also Published This Month

In the Research & Analysis Section

In the Interview Section

In the Notes & Commentary Section

Quotes and Media Appearances

• Visa, Mastercard Restart Business in Syria — Global Finance Magazine (Chloé Domat, June 3, 2026)

• Syria in the shadow of the Iran war: From crisis to opportunity? — The New Arab (Cian Ward, June 24, 2026)

Key Developments: Syria’s 2026 wheat season entered June significantly stronger than in previous years, supported by improved rainfall and better crop conditions across several key producing areas. In Hasakah, the Syrian Grain Establishment (SGE) expected to receive 800,000 to 1 million tons of wheat, while preliminary estimates put total Jazira production at around 1.1–1.2 million tons. Aleppo expected a much stronger season than last year, with projected wheat production of around 571,000 tons and some estimates suggesting output could exceed 600,000 tons. The SGE prepared 20 collection centers across the Hasakah Governorate and said existing wheat stocks of 400,000–500,000 tons were being transferred to other governorates to free storage capacity for the new harvest. By June 30, Hasakah farmers had delivered 480,000 tons of wheat to government procurement centers, with the harvest nearing completion and official estimates still indicating that total provincial production would exceed 1.025 million tons.

The stronger harvest is already affecting import planning. The SGE said available wheat stocks were sufficient to meet basic ration needs and maintain stable bread and flour supplies, and that wheat imports would be temporarily paused this season pending the final harvest outcome.

However, the stronger harvest did not automatically translate into improved livelihoods for farmers or rural workers. In Raqqa, the harvest season created jobs in harvesting, transport, bagging, and grain collection centers, but rising unemployment and a larger pool of available workers pushed wages down. Workers also said weak rainfed yields in parts of the governorate reduced earnings for those paid by the quantity harvested or bagged, while local observers warned that exchange-rate volatility could erode farmers’ income once payments were made. Concerns were also raised that a potentially large injection of Syrian pounds into the market could put pressure on the exchange rate, further eroding the value of earnings (see “Exchange-Rate Volatility Tests Syria’s Redenomination Process”).

Payment uncertainty also persisted. By June 13, farmers’ grain dues had not yet begun to be paid, as the authorities were waiting for the Central Bank to transfer the required funds. Payments were still expected to be made through the Agricultural Cooperative Bank, as in the previous season.

To ease procurement bottlenecks, the government launched new administrative tools. The Ministry of Agriculture launched an electronic platform for farmers wishing to market their crops, allowing them to register and reserve delivery slots. The platform triggered pushback, however. On June 16, farmers in Tell Tamr (Hasakah) staged a sit-in in front of the Agriculture Directorate, arguing that weak rural internet access, delayed appointments, and the difficulty of using digital tools could slow wheat delivery and increase costs during a time-sensitive harvest season. In Hasakah, officials later announced measures to reduce congestion at collection centers, including accepting loose wheat in open storage areas, opening additional sites as needed, allowing wheat to be transported to other governorates at government expense, and exempting wheat trucks from axle-load penalties for loads up to 25 percent above the legal limit.

By late June, the authorities had expanded the number of receiving centers in Hasakah to around 30 after opening ten additional centers, while daily intake reportedly reached around 70,000 tons nationwide, including about 30,000 tons per day in Hasakah alone. Four new payment points were also announced in Hasakah, Qamishli, al-Malikiyah, and al-Darbasiyah, starting in early July, to reduce farmers’ travel burden and speed up invoice payments.

Still, farmers continued to raise concerns about agricultural inputs, especially fertilizers, fuel allocations, and diesel for harvesters and tractors, in addition to the need to announce strategic crop prices before the planting season. Fuel shortages, especially, remained one of the most immediate threats to the season. In rural Qamishli and Hasakah, diesel shortages and prices of up to (old) SYP 20,000 per liter halted many harvesters, leaving wheat fields at risk of grain loss and fires before the crop could be collected. These pressures overlapped with wider fuel protests in Hasakah Governorate and earlier official promises to send subsidized diesel to support farmers during the harvest season. This recent wave of protests also followed a wave of farmer protests in May 2026.

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Why It Matters: The stronger 2026 harvest is good news, but it remains far from recovery. Improved rainfall has improved output prospects, yet farmers still struggle with structural challenges. While rainfall can account for better yields, farmers still rely on debt, expensive inputs, and trader/broker arrangements that can leave them selling crops below market value. This situation has led to the paradox described earlier, in which Syria may produce more wheat, yet many farmers may not feel significantly better off, as the aforementioned challenges quickly erode the benefits of a stronger harvest.

It is also worth noting that the government’s response shows how agriculture remains one of the most interventionist parts of Syria’s recovery. Despite broader rhetoric around liberalization, private investment, and a larger role for the market (recently toned down, however), Damascus remains deeply involved in wheat procurement, collection centers, payment channels, fuel allocations, crop pricing, marketing platforms, and now plans to establish an agricultural holding company. This is not surprising. Agriculture is tied to food security, rural employment, exports, and social stability, and the state cannot easily step back from a sector on which much of the country still depends. According to Agriculture Minister Basil al-Suwaidan, around 30 percent of Syria’s population relies, directly or indirectly, on agriculture for income and employment.

Still, the calculus is not necessarily a bad one, quite the contrary. Prioritizing agriculture, especially given Syria’s productive potential, could help ease several macroeconomic pressures at once. Wheat import requirements for the 2025/26 marketing year were forecast at around 3 million tons, nearly 70 percent above the five-year average, following two weak domestic production seasons. At recent global wheat prices of roughly USD 220 per ton, this implies an import bill in the high hundreds of millions of dollars. Reducing that bill through increased local production would not only support food security but also ease pressure on foreign-currency demand, the trade deficit, and, ultimately, the Syrian pound.

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Key Developments: Syria’s air connectivity continued to expand with several European routes announced or under negotiation. On June 25, Syrian Arab Airlines said it would launch direct Damascus-Amsterdam flights on July 2, marking its first return to Western European operations since EU measures introduced in October 2012 barred it from EU airports and from EU individuals and entities working with the carrier. The Syrian Aviation Holding Company said the route followed technical, legal, and diplomatic work aimed at restoring the national carrier’s European presence, while Omar al-Hosari, head of the General Authority of Civil Aviation and Air Transport, described Amsterdam as the first step in a broader expansion plan.

However, the operational structure of the route appears more complex than the initial announcement suggested. Dutch aviation media reported that tickets had gone on sale for Amsterdam-Damascus flights under Syrian Airlines flight numbers, with services scheduled on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Schiphol Airport’s own flight information page listed flight RB271 from Amsterdam to Damascus, while the aircraft details for the July 2 flight showed an Airbus A320 registered LY-MAU. Flight-tracking and fleet data identify LY-MAU as an Airbus A320 operated by Lithuania’s Heston Airlines, an EU-based aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance (ACMI) and charter carrier. This suggests that the route is being marketed under Syrian Airlines’ RB flight numbers but operated by Heston Airlines’ aircraft, rather than by Syrian Airlines’ own fleet.

Germany could follow the Netherlands, although approvals remain pending. Reports that Sundair planned to begin twice-weekly Berlin-Damascus flights from August 1 prompted the Syrian Civil Aviation and Air Transport Authority to clarify that no final operational approval had yet been granted. The authority said the route still depends on regulatory and operational approvals from the German side, as well as the completion of technical procedures, while Hosari said a final German decision was expected in the first half of July.

Aleppo also gained a new European connection. On June 19, Romania’s Dan Air announced it would begin direct scheduled flights from Bucharest to Aleppo starting July 1, adding to its existing Bucharest-Damascus service. Dan Air said it had carried more than 30,000 passengers between Bucharest and Damascus during its first year of operations in Syria, with an average load factor of 88 percent, and that it would become the only EU carrier operating scheduled flights to both Damascus and Aleppo.

These route announcements come amid a broader rebound in the use of Syrian airspace. Some 11,801 flights crossed Syrian airspace in May, more than double February’s level and around 375 percent higher than in May 2025, as regional airlines rerouted around disrupted airspace elsewhere in the Middle East.

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Why It Matters: The Amsterdam route remains symbolically important, but its operational structure should be interpreted with caution. Operations by Heston Airlines under an ACMI or wet-lease-style arrangement do not necessarily mean that Syrian Airlines itself has regained full operational access to the EU market.

This distinction matters for regulatory reasons. Under EASA rules, any third-country operator intending to conduct commercial air transport into, within, or out of the EU and EFTA area must hold a Third Country Operator (TCO) authorization. EASA confirmed with The Syria Dispatch on June 26 that, as of that date, no Syrian operator held such an authorization. It also clarified that one-off notification flights are limited to humanitarian or ambulance flights in the public interest and cannot be used as a workaround for regular commercial service. As of July 2, 2026, no Syrian air carrier appears among the TCO-licensed carriers. An EU carrier such as Heston does not face that same TCO requirement when operating under its own European approvals, although the route would still require the relevant national permits, Syrian approvals, airport procedures, insurance, and security arrangements.

The Heston structure therefore makes the Amsterdam route more plausible but provides less definitive evidence of Syrian Airlines’ full return to Europe as an operator. It is closer to a commercial and diplomatic reopening than a complete regulatory normalization of Syrian civil aviation. Still, the arrangement also shows how Syria’s aviation reintegration may proceed in stages. European carriers, charter operators, and ACMI providers can reconnect Syrian airports to Europe before Syrian operators themselves clear all safety, regulatory, and insurance hurdles. That could help meet immediate demand from the Syrian diaspora, family travelers, business visitors, and possibly return-related travel, while buying time for Syrian aviation authorities and airlines to rebuild compliance capacity.

Still, the risks have not disappeared. European countries can, however, impose national restrictions, something which appears to be the current impediment to Sundair’s Berlin-Damascus route. Added to this is EASA’s wider conflict-zone guidance, which may further restrain flights to Syria. Indeed, EASA’s Syria conflict-zone bulletin, revised on May 12 and valid until October 31, continues to advise operators not to use Syrian airspace because of military activity, fragmented airspace control, air-defense risks, Israeli strikes, drones, rockets, and MANPADS.

Such guidance may also affect insurance costs. While Syria-specific premium data are not publicly available, war-risk coverage has become more expensive for some Middle East operations, and insurers are likely to approach Syria with caution given the security environment, residual compliance risks, and airport security concerns.

Demand is unlikely to be the main obstacle. Direct flights would serve Syria’s large diaspora in Europe, facilitate family travel and business links, and potentially support voluntary refugee returns, a priority for several European governments. This gives the Amsterdam route political significance, especially after the June 24 Dutch visit to Damascus, where migration, reconstruction, and refugee returns were reportedly discussed.

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Key Developments: Türkiye and Saudi Arabia moved to advance plans for a regional railway and logistics corridor linking Türkiye to the Gulf through Syria and Jordan. On June 9, Turkish Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloğlu and Saudi Transport Minister Saleh bin Nasser al-Jasser signed two memoranda of understanding on logistics services and railway cooperation, covering logistics centers, infrastructure, technology, training, and technical exchange.

Uraloğlu said Türkiye and Saudi Arabia aim to build a railway linking the two countries through Jordan and Syria within three to four years, with other Gulf states potentially joining later. He said the Saudi route to the Jordanian border is already complete, while Türkiye has completed links from Islahiye to Kilis and Gaziantep near the Syrian border. The remaining gap is around 400 km between Syria and Jordan. He also said the plan includes around USD 100 million to rebuild the rail route between Türkiye and Aleppo, creating a direct link to Damascus.

The agreement builds on earlier Syria–Jordan–Türkiye transport talks. In April, the three countries signed a trilateral memorandum in Amman to develop road, maritime, and rail connectivity, simplify border procedures, and coordinate transit movement. The new Saudi-Turkish track gives the project a broader regional frame, linking it more directly to Gulf markets and to the possible revival of north-south rail connectivity through Syria.

The railway talks coincided with a broader push for Syria–Türkiye economic integration. At the Anadolu City Economies Summit in Gaziantep, Turkish Trade Minister Ömer Bolat said bilateral trade is expected to reach USD 5 billion within two years and USD 10 billion by the early 2030s. Turkish officials also said they were ready to open the Islahiye customs gate and the Nusaybin-Qamishli crossing, while Turkish banks had reportedly reached an agreement to open branches in Syria pending central bank talks.

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Why It Matters: Better rail and logistics integration with Türkiye and the Gulf would be positive for Syria in principle. In theory and in practice, lower transport costs, faster border crossings, and more reliable corridors should support trade, reconstruction supply chains, exports, and Syria’s broader ambition to become useful again as a transit country. The Saudi-Turkish framing is important because it moves the project beyond bilateral Syria–Türkiye connectivity and places Syria inside a wider north-south corridor linking Europe, Türkiye, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and potentially other Gulf markets. This gives the proposal a stronger regional anchor and greater credibility.

But the railway plan still has many moving parts. A Syria–Türkiye rail link is probably the easier piece, especially if the priority is to rehabilitate the line toward Aleppo and reconnect it to Damascus. The harder part is the southern connection through Jordan. One of the many technical challenges is that the historic Hejaz line was built on a 1,050 mm narrow gauge, while Türkiye’s main network and most of Syria’s later railways use the 1,435 mm standard gauge. This means a modern freight corridor cannot simply be “revived” as a heritage route, but would require decisions on reconstruction standards, gauge conversion, transshipment points, rolling stock, financing, border procedures, and operating rights.

The corridor also has a political economy problem. Integration with Türkiye can help Syria restore trade, banking links, industrial inputs, and reconstruction supply chains, but it also risks reinforcing an already imbalanced trade relationship. Turkish exports to Syria reached about USD 3.5 billion in 2025, while Syrian exports to Türkiye fell to around USD 235 million. Syrian producers and economists have already warned that cheaper Turkish goods are putting pressure on local manufacturers and the trade balance. Better logistics could therefore lower costs for consumers and traders, but also intensify competition for Syrian industry if not paired with a clearer industrial policy.

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Key Developments: On June 10, Energy Minister Mohammad al-Bashir used the Global Energy Forum in Washington to present Syria as a potential regional energy hub linking the Gulf, Iraq, and the Eastern Mediterranean to regional and international markets. He cited cooperation with Chevron, ConocoPhillips, GE Vernova, and HKN Energy, as well as partnerships with TotalEnergies, Siemens, and Ansaldo Energia, and said that advanced discussions were also underway with Eni and other companies.

On June 16, the Syrian Petroleum Company (SPC) signed a contract with ConocoPhillips and Novaterra to develop several gas fields and increase production from existing fields, with the stated aim of supporting the electricity sector and other vital sectors. The contract followed an earlier memorandum of understanding signed in November 2025 and was presented by Energy Minister Mohammad al-Bashir as a step toward raising domestic gas production, improving operational efficiency, and restoring confidence in Syria’s energy investment environment. Syria will receive a 56 percent share under the contract, with the two investing companies receiving 44 percent. The deal could increase daily gas output by around 4–5 million cubic meters within a year.

The same day, the SPC denied reports that Australia’s AXP Energy had entered Syria’s oil and gas sector or signed an agreement with the company. The denial followed AXP’s announcement that it had secured the right to earn up to 25 percent in an onshore Block 9 production-sharing contract in the Palmyra Basin through a farm-in arrangement. SPC said all official agreements and partnerships would be announced exclusively through its own channels and in accordance with the relevant legal and institutional frameworks.

Foreign interest also moved toward formal bidding. On June 18, SPC said it planned to launch an international bid round for four oil fields in Deir Ezzor in Mahash, Akissyah, East Khrata, and Qusaibeh, grouped as the “MAKK Area” (northwest of Shell’s former al-Furat Petroleum Company), with commercial bids due by July 19.

Offshore and midstream discussions also advanced. On June 23, SPC CEO Youssef Qiblawy met with a Chevron delegation to discuss converting the existing memorandum of understanding on offshore exploration in Block 1 into an executive contract. The meeting also covered the possibility of Chevron’s participation as a strategic partner in reviving the Kirkuk-Baniyas crude oil pipeline. On the same day, SPC discussed cooperation with UAE-based ENOC and Horizon Terminals to rehabilitate and develop pipelines and oil terminals.

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Why It Matters: The June announcements further indicate that Syria’s energy sector is moving in a positive direction. Foreign companies are now beginning to move toward contracts, bid rounds, and more concrete discussions over upstream, offshore, and midstream assets.

Still, the announcements should be treated carefully. Signing a contract is not the same as implementation, and Syria’s oil and gas sector remains challenging: infrastructure is damaged, security risks persist, sanctions and compliance concerns have not entirely disappeared, banking channels remain weak, and the legal status of some legacy concessions remains unclear. The AXP Energy episode illustrates another issue: transparency, or the lack thereof. It raised basic questions about who owns what and how the new authorities will treat contracts or concessions originating under the Assad era. SPC’s denial was useful, but it also showed the need for clearer public rules on approval, disclosure, and contract validity.

There is also a governance issue. Oil and gas contracts concern strategic national assets, and attracting foreign companies may require generous fiscal terms, especially given Syria’s political, technical, and security risks. That may be understandable in the short term, but it increases the need for transparency and institutional oversight. Syria does not need to publish every commercial detail, but major energy contracts should be subject to some form of public or parliamentary scrutiny, clear procurement procedures, and reporting on revenue-sharing, investment obligations, production targets, environmental safeguards, and local employment. With these types of contracts, the issue is not simply who is in charge — whether a public, private, local, or foreign actor — but what terms were set. (Read: Syria Needs More Electricity. Does It Matter Who Builds It?). In that context, having international bidding rounds for various blocks and fields is a step in the right direction.

The local dimension will be just as important. Many of the assets under discussion are in or near eastern Syria, where communities have long viewed the oil and gas sector as extractive: resources leave the region while services, jobs, electricity, fuel, and water remain inadequate. The recent protests in Hasakah, including the blocking of oil trucks, show that this grievance remains politically salient (see this month’s entry on the Qamishli and Hasakah protests). Recent protests related to the closure of makeshift refineries are another wake-up call for the government not to overlook local populations. Reviving production in Deir Ezzor, Hasakah, or central Syria could support local recovery if it creates jobs, repairs infrastructure, and channels visible benefits back into producing regions. If not, energy investment could deepen social tensions… and those tensions are themselves bad for business. Recent moves by SPC to hire local workers, reinstate previously dismissed employees, and relocate parts of the upstream administration closer to Deir Ezzor suggest that the authorities have understood this risk. The same applies to the government’s wider emphasis on developing the eastern governorates.

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Key Developments: Qamishli witnessed a continuous wave of protests in late June that began with a retirees’ mobilization over delayed pensions and expanded into broader demonstrations over fuel prices, electricity shortages, public services, and deteriorating living conditions.

On June 20, dozens of retirees held a sit-in in front of the Social Insurance branch, demanding the payment of delayed pensions and faster processing of their files. The action was organized by the newly formed Retirees’ Solidarity Gathering (تجمع تكاتف المتقاعدين). The organization later announced its formal establishment, describing itself as an independent civic initiative open to all retirees in Hasakah Governorate, focused on addressing pension delays and low pension amounts, improving the work of the local Social Insurance branch, and demanding a dedicated health insurance law for retirees. Some retirees reported they had not received pensions for around a year, while others reported delays ranging from several months to a year and a half.

The following day, a new wave of protests was sparked after fuel prices rose and service allocations were reduced. On June 21, residents and shop owners blocked roads and burned tires in central Qamishli after diesel prices reportedly rose from 55 to 75 cents per liter. Fuel allocations for bakeries, generators, and transport were also cut by more than half, forcing many private generators to reduce hours or stop operating during a period of high summer temperatures. Protesters demanded lower fuel prices, a more stable electricity supply, improved public services, and action to contain the rising costs of bread, transport, and basic goods. The protests continued into a second and third day, expanding beyond fuel alone. On June 23, protesters continued to call for basic living needs to be secured, prices to be brought under control, and services to be improved and later chanting slogans such as “the people want better living conditions,” “protest against poverty and hunger,” “we will continue until prices are reduced,” and “our daily demands are bread, peace, and freedom.”

These protests were part of a broader pattern of growing popular anger in the Hasakah Governorate. More than 40 protest events were recorded across Hasakah Governorate between June 1 and June 28 alone. The demands varied, but most centered on delayed salaries and pensions, fuel and electricity shortages, rising prices, unemployment, poor services, and the release of detainees (see table below).

Earlier in the month, the authorities had already moved to contain similar fuel-related unrest in rural Hasakah. On June 10, Deputy Governor Ahmad al-Hilali said one million liters of subsidized diesel would be sent to the governorate, with priority given to the agricultural sector during the harvest season. Hilali also linked the accumulated service challenges to the ongoing process of completing institutional integration and fully reactivating state directorates in Hasakah.

Earlier protests in al-Hol, al-Shaddadi, Tell Brak, and Ghazila had already focused on the contradiction between Hasakah’s oil resources and its shortages of fuel, water, electricity, and jobs. In several areas, residents blocked roads used by oil tankers, arguing that local communities remained underserved despite the daily movement of fuel and oil through the governorate.

This contradiction also shaped the language of the Qamishli protest movement. In a statement read on behalf of protesters on June 25, participants described the Jazira as one of Syria’s richest regions in resources but among the poorest in services, framing their demands around cheap and clean bread, electricity, drinking water, security, and an end to corruption and the extraction of local wealth. The statement also rejected narrow party agendas, presenting the mobilization as a broader social and livelihood protest.

Back to fuel, the supply shock quickly spread to transport, agriculture, and daily commerce. The regular Qamishli-Damascus bus fare rose from (old) SYP 135,000 to 290,000, while business-class bus fares increased from (old) SYP 185,000 to 400,000, and the price of the Qamishli-Hasakah route also doubled. Subsidized transport gasoline rose from (old) SYP 450 (USD 0.03)* to USD 0.55, prompting taxi and internal transport drivers to protest in front of the fuel committee (Sadcop) on June 23 and demand that the decision be reversed. The crisis also affected the wheat harvest, with fuel shortages and diesel prices of up to (old) SYP 20,000 (USD 0.7) per liter halting many harvesters in rural Qamishli and Hasakah, raising fears of crop losses and field fires.

^{(*Edited on July 3, 2026, to correct the dollar conversion of old SYP 450 from USD 0.30 to USD 0.03.)}

The protests prompted at least a limited policy response. On June 23, Energy Minister Mohammad al-Bashir issued Decision No. 822 of 2026 forming a permanent committee to determine prices for petroleum products and mineral resources. The committee includes representatives from the Energy Ministry, Finance Ministry, Economy and Industry Ministry, Central Bank, and relevant oil and mineral-resource bodies, and is tasked with reviewing petroleum prices in light of global prices, costs, the exchange rate, subsidy mechanisms, and other indicators.

On June 27, the committee held an extraordinary meeting to review pricing, supply costs, operating costs, and local and global market conditions, and raised new recommendations to the Energy Ministry. It also recommended adopting the Syrian pound as the sole currency for pricing petroleum products, a step presented as an effort to unify pricing mechanisms and strengthen the use of the national currency in the fuel sector. Later that day, the Energy Ministry approved fuel-price reductions ranging from more than 14 to 20 percent: 95-octane gasoline was cut by 20.39 percent to (new) SYP 130 per liter, 90-octane gasoline by 19.97 percent to (new) SYP 125, diesel by 14.37 percent to (new) SYP 107, domestic gas cylinders by 15.49 percent to (new) SYP 1,500, and industrial gas cylinders by 15.49 percent to (new) SYP 2,400.

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Why It Matters: Beyond the immediate backlash against the fuel-price increase, the Qamishli protests represent another stress test of the state’s attempt to reintegrate northeast Syria administratively, fiscally, and economically. Fuel was the immediate trigger, but the chronology of the protests points to a broader accumulation of grievances: delayed pensions and salaries, weak services, electricity cuts, wheat-marketing problems, unemployment, detainee files, and unclear institutional responsibility. In this sense, this month of protests encapsulates the terms on which Hasakah Governorate is being brought back into the national system.

While protest movements have emerged across the country, the Hasakah Governorate is especially sensitive because the northeast is moving from years of Autonomous Administration and SDF-linked governance toward a difficult handover to Damascus. The fuel issue illustrates the tension clearly: Damascus may be trying to unify prices, reduce distortions, and regularize supply, but residents experience this as the loss or weakening of previous support systems before reliable Damascus-based state services have arrived. In an area where generators substitute for public electricity, transport depends heavily on fuel availability, and many salaries or pensions are delayed, fuel pricing is not a narrow technical matter.

The protests also carried a strong distributive message linked to historic grievances. Hasakah is one of Syria’s most resource-rich governorates, yet residents repeatedly contrasted the movement of oil and fuel through the governorate with shortages of electricity, water, jobs, and basic services. Stability in the northeast will require significant support for and development of this region (see “Deir Ezzor Redevelopment Push Accelerates Across Transport, Oil, Water, and Electricity”).

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Key Developments: Deir Ezzor saw a cluster of redevelopment announcements in June, focused on reconnecting the governorate, restoring basic services, and relocating parts of the oil-sector administration closer to production sites.

In transport infrastructure, Omar al-Hosari, head of the General Authority of Civil Aviation and Air Transport, said Deir Ezzor International Airport had entered the final stages of rehabilitation ahead of its reopening, with technical and operational readiness under review. The Ministry of Public Works and Housing also launched the reconstruction of al-Siyasiya Bridge, a key Euphrates crossing linking Deir Ezzor city with the northern countryside, with a planned implementation period of 12 months. The bridge’s destruction had forced residents to rely on ferries and temporary crossings, while recent flooding of the Euphrates further damaged makeshift routes.

The bridge project formed part of a wider transport rehabilitation package. On June 7, the Ministry of Transport discussed a plan worth more than USD 37 million to repair roads and bridges in Deir Ezzor, including USD 6.7 million for maintenance on the Deir Ezzor–Mayadin–Bukamal, Deir Ezzor–Hasakah, and Deir Ezzor–Raqqa axes, and around USD 30.5 million for strategic bridge and road projects. The package also includes the proposed Damascus–Palmyra–Deir Ezzor road, while the Finance Minister proposed building two new bridges in Deir Ezzor and Raqqa under modern engineering standards.

In oil and gas, the Syrian Petroleum Company reportedly decided to relocate a large part of the upstream exploration and production sector to Deir Ezzor, including a two-month deadline to move the main exploration and production center, rehabilitate administrative and logistical facilities, and base more engineers and technicians near the fields. The company also announced the hiring of 555 people from Deir Ezzor, including 400 security personnel, 70 engineers and technicians, and 85 field and support workers, as well as the reinstatement of 200 previously dismissed employees. Contractors were also instructed to prioritize local hiring.

Basic-service repairs and flood recovery continued in parallel. The Ministry of Energy carried out maintenance on the Euphrates water-conveyance project toward al-Sour, including concrete repairs to damaged sections of the channel, to sustain water delivery to nearby villages. On June 23, Deir Ezzor’s emergency response committee also formed a specialized committee to assess and compensate for damage from the recent rise in Euphrates water levels. The affected agricultural area was later reported at 22,678 dunums, up from an earlier estimate of 21,853 dunums, while 83 water stations had previously gone out of service. Electricity repairs also advanced, with the General Electricity Company announcing the rehabilitation of the 230 kV al-Taym transformer station, serving Deir Ezzor and the wider eastern region.

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Why It Matters: Deir Ezzor has long sat at the center of Syria’s oil, gas, agriculture, and cross-border trade routes, but residents have often experienced that position less as an advantage than as a form of extraction. The governorate generated strategic resources while receiving limited local development, weak services, poor infrastructure, and few durable economic returns. The latest redevelopment announcements should therefore be read against this background: they respond to one of eastern Syria’s oldest grievances, namely the gap between Deir Ezzor’s national importance and the conditions in which many of its residents live.

The oil-sector decisions are especially noteworthy. Relocating part of the upstream administration and technical staff closer to Deir Ezzor’s fields would partially reverse a long-standing pattern in which the governorate hosted the resources while decision-making remained concentrated elsewhere. If implemented, this could localize jobs, improve technical oversight, and make the province feel less like a peripheral extraction zone. SPC’s decision also speaks to a sensitive social file, especially after earlier protests over the closure of informal refineries and the livelihoods tied to the local oil economy.

Beyond the oil sector, projects open for investment on the Syrian Investment Agency’s (SIA) website (see table below) point in the same direction, presenting Deir Ezzor not only as an oil province but as a broader redevelopment frontier. The listed opportunities span agriculture, livestock, hospitals, logistics, rail, energy, airport services, real estate, agro-industry, and mineral resources, with a headline value above USD 6 billion as of late June 2026. Still, the list is analytically useful because it shows the government trying to recast Deir Ezzor from an extraction zone into a recovery corridor linking oil, agriculture, services, industry, and trade with Iraq.

Overall, redevelopment in Deir Ezzor cannot be separated from reintegration and stabilization. Repairing bridges, restoring water and electricity, reopening the airport, compensating flood-affected farmers, and offering credible employment in the oil sector are all part of rebuilding state legitimacy in a region long associated with neglect, extraction, ISIS rule, SDF control, displacement, and fragmented authority. Moreover, if these projects improve daily life, they could reduce the appeal of armed groups, smuggling networks, and informal economies. If they remain symbolic or are captured by contractors and central institutions, they could reinforce the same resentment they are meant to address.

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Key Developments: June opened with renewed pressure on Syrian households’ purchasing power, as the Syrian pound continued to weaken during the first half of the month before partially recovering in the final week, while markets rapidly absorbed the effects of recently approved salary increases.

The executive instructions for implementing Presidential Decrees No. 67 and No. 68 of 2026, which added 50 percent to fixed salaries and wages, had barely been issued before price increases began eroding the raise. The increases, which take effect in June 2026, were poised to be diluted by exchange-rate volatility and precautionary pricing. However, the pound’s late-June rebound means the final dollar value of salaries depends on the exchange-rate benchmark used.

As prices of basic food and non-food items rose by up to 25 percent following the pound’s decline, some traders priced goods against a precautionary exchange rate of around (old) SYP 16,000 (new SYP 160) to the dollar to hedge for future inflation. This behavior reflected a broader breakdown in price visibility and led to a widening gap between official and black-market rates (see chart below).

In the final week of June, however, the Central Bank took active steps to narrow the gap between the official and black-market rates. On June 25, it raised the official dollar rate to (new) SYP 118.5 for buying and 119.5 for selling, the third official devaluation in less than two months. On June 28, the official rate was raised again to (new) SYP 121.5–122.5, while the parallel-market rate reportedly stood at around (new) SYP 128. This reduced the official-parallel gap to around 4.9 percent, while the Central Bank narrowed the permitted exchange-rate margin from 9 percent to 3 percent.

Still, volatility coincided with continued uncertainty around the currency replacement process. On June 1, Central Bank Governor Mohammed Safwat Raslan said more than 63% (then 66% on June 10) of the nationwide currency replacement process had been completed, and announced a 30-day extension, from July 1 to July 31, as a final opportunity for holders of old banknotes to exchange them. He also instructed banks, exchange companies, and money-transfer firms not to reintroduce old notes into circulation and to provide customers with only the new Syrian pound for withdrawals, exchanges, and cash payments. Raslan later clarified that the end of the exchange period through banks and exchange companies would not cancel citizens’ right to hand in old notes and receive new ones during a five-year withdrawal period, under mechanisms to be announced later.

It should be noted that implementation remained uneven, especially in northeast Syria, where Hasakah had effectively been outside the normal currency-replacement cycle due to the closure of public banks and the absence of functioning financial institutions in parts of the governorate, particularly amid the continued administrative division between Damascus and the SDF. The Central Bank moved to address this gap: on June 23, it designated 11 currency-replacement centers in Hasakah Governorate through al-Haram and Osoul exchange and transfer companies, distributed across Hasakah, Qamishli, Darbasiyah, and Amuda, with nine reportedly ready to receive citizens and two still under preparation. Two days later, the Central Bank branch in Raqqa resumed official operations for the first time since 2013, offering services including currency replacement and wheat-payment processing.

At the policy level, Raslan used the first National Conference for Dialogue with the Private Sector in early June to signal a more coordinated approach. He said the Central Bank’s next phase would rely on institutional work and planning rather than “improvised or unilateral decisions,” while acknowledging that the widening gap between official and market exchange rates affects investment decisions, depositor behavior, confidence in the financial market, banking activity, and the investment climate. The Central Bank Governor also mentioned that a study to develop Islamic financial products is forthcoming. (On Islamic finance, READ here)

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Why It Matters: The exchange-rate movement fed directly into prices, but the more important issue is not only depreciation. It is volatility. A currency that weakens sharply, partially rebounds, and changes several times within the same day still undermines pricing, wage expectations, and market confidence.

In a volatile exchange-rate environment, traders price not only according to current costs but also in anticipation of future depreciation. The use of precautionary exchange rates is therefore both a response to inflation and a driver of it. It protects traders from replacement-cost risk, but it also transmits expectations of further depreciation into current prices. In this sense, the problem is not only that the pound lost value in the first half of June. It is that no single exchange-rate anchor was credible enough to guide transactions, contracts, salaries, or inventories.

The Central Bank’s late-June adjustments therefore represent a move towards defensive stabilization after months of seeming apathy in the face of the depreciating pound. By raising the official rate and narrowing the permitted margin, the Central Bank reduced (at least for now) the gap with the parallel market. It limited the space for arbitrage, speculation, and multiple pricing references. These decisions should help reduce the official-market gap, stabilize expectations, and protect government revenues priced against the official exchange rate. Still, this remains exchange-rate management, not yet a full monetary policy framework.

The redenomination process compounds this problem because the exercise is going well beyond a purely technical one. It has become a test of administrative capacity and public trust. The repeated extensions suggest that implementation has been slower and more uneven than planned due to weak logistical capacity at Central Bank branches and commercial banks, the continued appearance of old cash holdings in the market, concerns over excluding poorer and rural households, and possible shortages or distribution problems affecting the new notes.

Such limitations are especially important in northeast Syria, where Hasakah’s delayed access to replacement services revealed the territorial and institutional limits of monetary policy. If some governorates have better access to banks, exchange companies, and replacement centers than others, the redenomination can create uneven monetary conditions inside the same national economy. This risks deepening cash-market fragmentation, encouraging informal brokers, and weakening confidence in the state’s ability to administer a national currency. The subsequent designation of 11 replacement centers in Hasakah and the reopening of the Central Bank branch in Raqqa are therefore important corrective steps. Still, they also underscore how closely monetary stabilization is tied to the reintegration of state institutions across the country… and hint that redenomination might have been premature for this reason, at least.

Raslan’s emphasis on coordination with ministries, institutions, and the private sector is analytically significant for this reason. It implicitly acknowledges that the Central Bank cannot stabilize the currency through announcements alone. Exchange-rate policy, redenomination, banking access, fiscal management, customs, imports, wheat payments, salary increases, and market regulation interact. If coordination remains weak, each measure risks undermining the next: wage increases feed prices, currency replacement creates uncertainty, exchange-rate gaps encourage arbitrage, and traders hedge against future instability.

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Editor’s note: This commentary was originally commissioned and published by Levant24 on June 30, 2026. It is republished here with permission and full credit to Levant24. The text reflects Levant24’s copy-editing and editorial style guide, so some wording, spellings, and stylistic choices may differ from those usually used on The Syria Dispatch. We invite you to read the original version here.

Syria is once again trying to turn geography into strategy.

Yet before becoming a full-fledged transit hub, the strongest case for Syria’s transit ambitions rests on redundancy. In a region where maritime chokepoints, war risk, insurance costs, and political disruption have made alternative routes more valuable, and given its position, Syria does not need to prove that it can become the region’s next great hub overnight. First, it needs to show that selected routes through its territory can work.

That makes recovery the starting point. Rebuilding ports, roads, border crossings, electricity links, pipelines, and telecommunications networks is not separate from Syria’s transit ambition. It is the condition for it. If these systems become safer, cheaper, and more predictable, Syria could gradually position itself as a supplementary corridor for trade, energy, logistics, and data. Hub status, if it comes, would not emerge from geography alone.

Syria cannot replace the Suez Canal, the Strait of Hormuz, or Bab al-Mandab. Nor can it assume that it will simply displace Israel-linked routes in Western and Gulf connectivity planning. Its value lies elsewhere: offering additional options in a region where redundancy has become strategically important. The more Syria rebuilds the infrastructure it needs for its own recovery, the more it may organically become useful to others.

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An Old Idea, New Conditions

Such a vision is not new. In the late 2000s, deposed dictator Bashar al-Assad promoted a “Four Seas” vision that sought to turn Syria into a regional intersection for investment, transport, and energy linking the Mediterranean, the Gulf, the Caspian, and the Black Sea. At the time, the concept was tied to Syria’s rapprochement with Turkey and its attempt to escape isolation through infrastructure and regional connectivity. War, sanctions, institutional collapse, and political isolation threw that idea into the abyss.

Today, Damascus is trying to revive this idea under new political conditions: Syria as an economic transit hub. President Ahmad al-Sharaa has already made that pitch abroad. At the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in April, and later at an informal summit with European leaders in Cyprus, he presented the “Four Seas” and “Nine Corridors” initiative, a vision for linking the Gulf, the Mediterranean, the Caspian, and the Black Sea through Syrian territory.

Syrian diplomats in Washington are also carrying the message. Muhammad Qanatari, chargé d’affaires in Washington, recently said Syria was entering a new phase of positive relations with Iraq, focused on bilateral cooperation and regional economic connectivity. He framed Syria’s geography as a permanent strategic asset, placing the country at the intersection of the Caspian Sea, the Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf, and the Black Sea. Crucially, he also described the initiative not as a replacement for existing trade routes, but as an alternative framework to strengthen connectivity through energy networks, electricity grids, railways, and communications links.

This should be the core of Syria’s strategy: prove that specific corridors can work before claiming hub status. That is already beginning to happen through reconstruction itself.

In transport, Syria, Jordan, and Turkey have moved to strengthen north-south connectivity toward the Gulf. In logistics, CMA CGM’s Latakia port agreement and dry port plans for Adra and Aleppo, alongside DP World’s Tartous project, point toward better links between seaports and inland markets. Iraq is also testing Syria’s redundancy potential through the reopened Rabia-Yarubiyah crossing, fuel oil trucking, and discussions over the Kirkuk-Baniyas pipeline. In telecommunications, SilkLink could position Syria as a future digital corridor.

None of this makes Syria a hub yet. But it shows how rebuilding the systems Syria needs for itself could gradually make the country useful to others.

Through recovery rather than grand design, Syria is already moving toward a transit role. Gas, ports, dry ports, oil trucking, and telecom investment all respond first to Syria’s own reconstruction needs. If those systems become reliable, regional actors will have more reason to use them too. That is why the path to hub status starts at home. Syria’s long-term role cannot depend only on crisis conditions or disrupted maritime routes. It has to become commercially useful in normal times, not merely strategically useful when other corridors are under pressure.

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The Reliability Test

Still, while the direction of travel is encouraging, the path is fraught with challenges, with the main constraint being reliability at all levels. Physical reliability remains weak: much of the transport network still needs repair, from railways and roads to border facilities and port connections. Legal and operational reliability is also incomplete: customs rules, transit fees, dispute settlement, banking channels, insurance, and security guarantees also remain unclear or incomplete. For traders, logistics firms, and energy companies, a route is only useful if it is predictable.

Politics will be just as important as infrastructure. Turkey may benefit from faster access to Jordan and the Gulf. Iraq may want another route to the Mediterranean. Gulf states may want alternatives to vulnerable maritime chokepoints. Europe may value more resilient trade, energy, and data routes. But shared interests do not automatically create shared guarantees, and spoilers could easily interfere.

Israel is the clearest complication. A Syrian route can be drawn on a map as an alternative or supplement to other east-west connectivity projects, including the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor. The original IMEC logic relied heavily on a route through the Gulf, Jordan, Israel, and Europe. Still, recent analysis has already raised the need for alternative or wartime redesigns of the corridor. But that does not mean it would be politically accepted. Israel would likely view any project that strengthens the Syrian state, deepens Syria’s ties with Turkey and the Gulf, and turns Syrian territory into strategic infrastructure through a security lens.

Other spoilers could come from Syria’s own partners. Gulf engagement is positive, but it is not automatically stabilizing. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar are all expanding their portfolios in Syria, with their approaches well-defined and sometimes conflicting, particularly regarding reconstruction, governance, and regional alignment. Competition between Gulf capitals could bring money and political attention, but it could also reproduce rival networks of influence inside Syria if investments become tied to competing interests.

The U.S. track is more encouraging, but it also raises a durability question. Under President Donald Trump, the direction of travel is clearly positive, with Washington doing all it can to support the Syrian transition. But long-term infrastructure investors will still ask whether this policy survives the next U.S. political cycle. A corridor that depends on U.S. political cover cannot be built only on today’s White House position.

At the end of the day, Syria’s transit ambitions should be measured by reliability above anything else. The Four Seas framework can help attract investment and situate Syria’s recovery within a broader regional logic, but only if it is tied to implementation, which is still lacking today. Let us first make Syria usable: open borders, predictable customs, functioning ports and dry ports, clearer investment rules, workable banking channels, and security arrangements that lower risk before declaring it a hub.

If Syria gets this right, its role as a corridor can emerge from reconstruction itself. Ports rebuilt for Syrian trade can serve neighboring markets; energy links restored for Syrian households can connect to wider networks; digital infrastructure upgraded for Syria’s economy can eventually carry regional data. Geography gives Syria an opening, but it does not move goods, finance projects, or keep routes open. Redundancy only matters if the backup route works. For Syria, the path to becoming a transit hub begins with focusing on itself.