ALEPPO, Syria — The government-affiliated Homs Governorate Council recently gave the owners of the shops located in Homs city center a two-month deadline to reopen their shops that had been destroyed during the war.

On Jan. 24, Al-Watan daily, a newspaper close to the Syrian regime, quoted a source at the Homs Chamber of Commerce as saying, “The [Homs] council held successive meetings in the past period with merchants and neighborhood committees during which it called on them to return to the shopping district following its rehabilitation. In case they fail to do so, the council threatened to open the shops themselves. During the last meeting, they were given a two-month deadline to arrange their affairs and reopen their shops.”

The source added, “The shopping district in Homs city center is ready to resume activity as more than 70% of the rehabilitation works have been completed since the reconstruction campaign was launched four years ago in cooperation with the United Nations Development Program, the Homs Chamber of Commerce, the government service institutions and the local community.”

Ghazwan al-Nakdali, an activist and member of the Syrian Association for Citizens’ Dignity (SACD), told Al-Monitor, “The threats leveled by the Homs council against the shopkeepers reflect the regime’s desire to speed up the commercial district’s recovery.”