Tuesday marks the deadline for the Syrian government to begin drawing back troops as part of a cease-fire agreement with Syrian rebels brokered by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan. But on Sunday night, President Bashar al-Assad’s government announced new conditions for the troop pullback. The Assad regime says it now wants “written guarantees” that the rebels will stop fighting. It also asking for the governments of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey to promise to stop financing the armed groups. Amr Al Azm was once a consultant for the Assad regime. He’s now a member of the Syrian opposition and professor of history and anthropology at Shawnee State University. Jim Muir is the Baghdad correspondent for the BBC.
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