Bassma Kodmani

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Bassma Kodmani

Bassma Kodmani ( Arabic بسمة قضماني, DMG Basma Quḍmānī , born April 29, 1958 in Damascus ) is a Syrian political scientist and politician. She lives in France and is one of the best-known figures of the secular Syrian opposition.

life and career

Bassma Kodmani comes from a Syrian family of notables. Her great uncle Jamil Mardam-Bey was twice Prime Minister of the Syrian Republic, established under French rule , and co-founder of the National Bloc independence movement . Her father, the diplomat Nazem Kodmani, tried in the 1960s to improve diplomatic relations between Syria and France, which were interrupted due to the Suez crisis in 1956. After the Syrian-Egyptian defeat in the Six Day War in 1967, Nazem Kodmani fell out of favor due to a dispute with the then Syrian Foreign Minister and had to leave Syria with his family.

The Kodmani family had close personal ties to France; Bassma Kodmani attended a French Catholic school in Damascus and later studied at the French Institute for Political Studies (Sciences Po) in Paris. She received her doctorate in 1994 with a dissertation on the Palestine question under the supervision of the political scientist and later UN special envoy Ghassan Salamé . The doctoral thesis was published under the name "Bassma Kodmani-Derouiche", which she led for several years due to her marriage to the Palestinian journalist Nabil Derouiche.

Between 1981 and 1998 Bassma Kodmani worked as a researcher at the French Institute for International Relations (IFRI), where, among other things, she headed the Middle East research group .

From 1998 to 2005 she headed the Middle East Program for Governance and International Cooperation of the US Ford Foundation . In 2005 she founded the think tank "Arab Reform Initiative" together with other intellectuals of Arab origin.

Bassma Kodmani is the sister of the journalist and author Hala Kodmani, who is particularly well known in France.

In 2012 French President François Hollande awarded Bassma Kodmani the Order of Merit "Chevalière" (Knight) of the French Legion of Honor .

Political work and positions

Because of their language skills, their family relationships and its middle east policy expertise Bassma Kodmani was the protests in Syria as part of beginning the Arab Spring in 2011, later in a civil war resulted, of a sought-after contact for European and American diplomats in finding a settlement Crisis. Bassma Kodmani was involved in the opposition group Syrian National Council (SNC) and was appointed its spokeswoman. At the beginning of 2012, in this capacity, she called for military intervention by the West to protect the civilian population.

In the summer of 2012, Bassma Kodmani resigned as spokesperson for the SNC. With regard to the motive for this decision, it was suspected that she was increasingly critical of the growing role of Islamist and armed groups in the resistance against the regime of Bashar al-Assad and therefore distanced herself.

Since 2013 she has repeatedly called for greater political commitment from Europe to a negotiated solution in Syria. Otherwise, especially in the support states of the Syrian regime, Russia and Iran , the "radicals" who wanted to achieve a military solution to the conflict would prevail.

Bassma Kodmani became a member of the "High Negotiating Committee of Opponents of the Regime", an association of various opposition groups that was founded in 2015 at a summit in Riyadh and was recognized by several European countries.

In 2019, Kodmani was appointed to the Syrian Constitutional Committee, which met under the aegis of the United Nations .

In an article published in May 2020 for the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank , she recommended that European states work towards stronger Russian-American cooperation in Syria. In this way, Syria's society and economy and thus “constructive actors” in the country could be strengthened. The opportunity is favorable because Russia is "impatient" with President Assad. In an interview with the Middle East magazine zenith , Kodmani specified her statement: The Russian leadership considers Assad to be “incompetent”, but continues to rely on him to implement their plans in Syria.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bernard Lanot: La Lettre de l'Association d'Amitié France-Syrie. January 10, 2009, accessed May 7, 2020 (French).
  2. ↑ Bassma Kodmani-Darwish: La Question palestinienne: un règlement fragmenté pour un peuple dispersé . January 1, 1994 ( theses.fr [accessed May 8, 2020] Paris, Institut d'études politiques).
  3. ↑ La controverse à propos de Basma Kodmani. April 7, 2012, accessed May 8, 2020 (French).
  4. ↑ Bassma Kodmani - IFIT - Institute for Integrated Transitions. Retrieved May 8, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Bassma Kodmani - IFIT - Institute for Integrated Transitions. Retrieved May 8, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Who's Who: Bassma Kodmani. In: The Syrian Observer. March 13, 2018, accessed May 8, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Hala Kodmani as a guest in the ARTE Journal. Retrieved May 8, 2020 .
  8. ↑ Gabriela M. Keller: Syria: The death of the war reporter with the eye patch . In: The world . February 22, 2012 ( welt.de [accessed May 8, 2020]).
  9. ↑ Who's Who: Bassma Kodmani. In: The Syrian Observer. March 13, 2018, accessed May 8, 2020 .
  10. ↑ "A political solution is possible". In: InternationalePpolitik.de. Retrieved May 8, 2020 .
  11. ^ Opposition: ceasefire in Syria before the collapse . In: The world . April 10, 2016 ( welt.de [accessed on May 8, 2020]).
  12. ^ Syria constitutional talks stuck on first day of new round. In: Reuters. November 25, 2019, accessed May 8, 2020 .
  13. ^ The path through Moscow: How Europe can help Syria. Retrieved May 8, 2020 .
  14. ^ 'The Russians always thought of Assad as incompetent'. May 25, 2020, accessed on June 3, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Kodmani, Bassma
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Quḍmānī, Basma
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Syrian political scientist and politician
DATE OF BIRTH April 29, 1958
PLACE OF BIRTH Damascus