Rime Allaf, associate fellow at Chatham House, says that the importance of the defection of Syria’s deputy oil minister, Abdo Hussameddin, is being greatly exaggerated.

“There’s very little chance that the regime is going to manage the level of repression for much longer. Something’s going to give — it’s going to be financial, maybe economic, military, maybe somebody in the regime high enough up, high up, will manage to get people around them to say, this is where it stops. But something will break the camel’s back… but we just don’t know yet what it will be,” but in Allaf’s opinion, Hussameddin’s defection is not that significant.

Allaf spoke to Matthew Weaver on Skype: