Humanitarian, military and diplomatic response to the syrian conflict hosted by the middle east institute. It is about 90 minutes. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Im very sorry for the delay this morning. Other news is keeping our moderator busy, but he will be here in five or 10 minutes. I thought in the interest of time and because we are on air on cspan, we should get moving. Ill be giving some opening remarks. I think well get started on some of our opening remarks and then very swiftly alex will be a real start a moderated discussion. First of all, welcome to the middle east institute. Thank you ever so much for joining us to this extremely important event. Someone who is worked on syria and particularly on idlib nonstop for the last nine years, i can safely say that events like this couldnt come at a more important time. Im also not aware of any other events like this one happening in washington these days, so im extremely glad its taken place. The crisis that has developed i
And because we are on air on cspan we should get moving. Ill be giving some opening remarks. I think well get started on some of our opening remarks and then very swiftly alex will be a real start a moderated discussion. But first of all issa, welcome to the middle east institute. Thank you ever so much for joining us to this extremely important event. Someone who is worked on syria and particularly on idlib nonstop for the last nine years, i can safely say that events like this couldnt come at a more important time. Im also not aware of any other events like this one happening in washington these days, so im extremely glad its taken place. The american crisis that is developed in northwestern syria in recent months is entirely unprecedented. Not just after nine years of war in syria, but in this whole world modern history. And yet despite the sheer enormity of the crisis, the world has really get to do more than issue public statements of concern. Im going to keep my opening remarks p
Well what is the problem . And when you start thinking about what is the problem, it goes to a lot of different directions. You have an issue of global migration, you have immigration and immigration policy. You have refugees and displaced persons, and you have the treatment and according to the un, there are 272 million migrants in the world, so you talk about people that have moved from country to country, that is a large number. There have been three and a half part of the global perception, but the bigger number is 70 million displaced persons, and if you think about, that we are living at a time when we see more people forced out of their lives and out of their homes. And you see these people on the move. Over half of the refugees that are in other countries are from three countries, syria afghanistan, and south sudan, which is also really striking. When you think about what this means for policies, then theres obviously policies for handling refugees, policies for migration, poli
A struggle to sell tickets. Welcome to the program a prisoner swap is under way in Eastern Ukraine between Government Forces and pro russia separatists the 2nd major release in 3 months follows ukraine and russia agreeing to ease tension between them its 5 years since Russian Troops and extend the Crimean Peninsula and is under god freud is live for us in moscow what stage are we in terms of the prisoner swap as we speak. Well at this point in the 1st phase of this prisoner swap has apparently ended and that is that a look separatist of the lugansk region handed all were to ukraine a 25 ukrainians that they have kept captive and the ukrainian side handed over an unknown number of people to separate russian backed separatist of the lugansk region what comes now is the same thing happening with representatives of the region separatists from the dont yet region and what we could hear is that they will handle were to ukraine 55. 00 people expecting 87. 00 in return so the total of people t
The groups cochairs testified on the findings of the report and how they could be applied to the Current Situation with syria and turkey. This hearing will come to order and we welcome everyone. The subcommittee testimony on the findings and recommendations in the study groups final report. Given the timing of the hearing we will have the opportunity to discuss the ramifications of the policy changes in syria and a study Group Recommendations to still address the challenges that are. For the purpose of an opening statement. Thank you very much for testifying today and for your work and the final report of the study group. Your report as a thoughtful review of the conflict and provides pragmatic recommendations for how policymakers can protect u. S. Interests and destabilize syria. Now it is well known President Trump does not like to read but i wish that he had skimmed over the executive summary before the recent phone call with the turkish president. Your assessment notes do not elimi