Turkey’s foreign minister has called on the UN and other international actors to “extend a hand to the Syrian people and support the formation of an inclusive administration” following the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s government.

Hakan Fidan said Turkey would work for the territorial integrity, political unity, welfare and security of Syria after opposition fighters, including rebels Ankara has supported since 2011, captured Damascus on Sunday.

Turkey will prevent Isis and the Kurdistan Workers’ party, a militant group with close ties to US-backed Syrian Kurds who control north-east Syria, from exploiting the situation, and will end Syria’s status as “safe haven for terrorism,” he said, adding that Ankara was already working on the return of refugees and Syria’s reconstruction.

WASHINGTON — Not Fade Away closed out the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony on Sunday, just as honorees The Grateful Dead had used Buddy Holly’s ode to enduring love to close out hundreds of concerts over the years.

The packed house danced in the aisles to the bouncy beat after a night of honoring the Dead and other recipients of the lifetime achievement award for artistic accomplishment: director Francis Ford Coppola, jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval and singer-songwriter Bonnie Raitt. The venerable Harlem theater The Apollo, which has launched generations of Black artists, also was recognized.

Longtime Deadheads, including actors Miles Teller and Chloe Sevigny and talk show host David Letterman, paid tribute to the band’s blend of musical experimentation, longevity and community-building. “Their music fills the universe,” Letterman proclaimed.

The choice to honor The Apollo was an unusual one: the first time the Kennedy Center has chosen to honor a specific performance venue.

“The Apollo means so much to so many of us,” Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said while arriving on the red carpet. Moore pointed to iconic Apollo performances from Lauryn Hill and a young Michael Jackson as treasured memories of his youth.

The tribute to The Apollo highlighted the sheer diversity of art forms showcased at the 90-year-old theater. Savion Glover did a spirited tap dance routine; husband and wife duo The War and Treaty performed a medley of hits by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell; and comedian Dave Chappelle recounted his terrifying first Apollo performance at age 15.

“Everybody started booing. It was like I was outside my body watching,” he said. Eventually Chappelle was rushed off the stage by the theater’s infamous “Sandman,” but he credited the experience with helping him overcome his fear of bombing.

The annual gala at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts always features personalized tributes with performances and testimonials from fellow artists. Medallions were presented during the traditional Saturday night ceremony at the State Department.

In the first of the night’s tributes, Emmylou Harris and Dave Matthews performed a cover of Raitt’s duet with the late John Prine, “Angel from Montgomery.”

Music star Sheryl Crow paid tribute to Raitt’s trailblazing career as not just a singer or songwriter but as a widely respected blues guitarist in a male-dominated field.

“I would not be doing what I’m doing if I had not seen her perform as a 17-year old,” said Crow, who bought her first guitar shortly after seeing Raitt in concert.

Raitt herself, on the pre-event red carpet, predicted an emotional evening.

“I’ve brought a massive box of Kleenex and my waterproof eye liner,” she laughed.

Coppola received a tribute filled with previous Kennedy Center honorees, including Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese, Al Pacino and George Lucas. All described an iconoclastic and driven auteur who loved to nurture and support younger filmmakers.

“What Francis does creatively is jump off cliffs,” Lucas said. “When you spend enough time with Francis, you begin to believe you can jump off cliffs, too.”

Sandoval’s tribute featured multiple performances from an all-star band featuring Trombone Shorty and pianist Chucho Valdez from Sandoval’s original band, plus a flamenco dance performance by Timo Nunez. It also included a bit of light roast comedy from actor Andy Garcia.

“Arturo spoke very little English when he first came to America from Cuba all those years ago,” Garcia said. “But now his English … is much worse.”

The tribute performances are often kept secret from the recipients themselves, most notably in 2018 when Cyndi Lauper flat out lied to her longtime friend Cher about being unable to attend. Lauper appeared on stage to perform Cher’s hit, “If I Could Turn Back Time.”

At a ceremony at the White House before attending the awards event itself, President Joe Biden praised each honoree. He also had De Niro, who was in the audience, stand before declaring, “If I get in trouble, I’m coming to you pal.”

De Niro grinned and nodded and others in attendance, including the honorees, laughed at what appeared to be a reference to De Niro sometimes playing hardnosed enforcers in movies like “The Godfather.” But Biden actually meant he might seek the actor’s help for post-presidency career advice.

“Things are not looking good for February,” Biden joked.

Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris received an extended standing ovation from the audience when introduced at Kennedy Center. But this could be the last honors ceremony without political intrigue for a while.

During Donald Trump’s first four years in office, Kennedy Center officials were forced to walk a public tightrope between the tradition of the president attending the ceremony and the open antipathy toward Trump from multiple honorees. In 2017, recipient Norman Lear threatened to boycott his own ceremony if Trump attended. Trump, who takes office in January, skipped the ceremony for the entirety of his first term.

On the red carpet Sunday night, multiple Democratic political figures seemed to offer an olive branch.

“I hope he does come,” Moore said. “This is a wonderful celebration of genius in all its forms.”

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi added, “I think he would really enjoy it.”

The awards show will air on CBS on Dec. 22.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has fled the country after a stunning offensive by rebels who seized the capital city of Damascus and toppled the dynasty that had ruled for 50 years.

Amid scenes of jubilation on Sunday, the rebels proclaimed “the city of Damascus is free from the tyrant Bashar al-Assad” and “Assad has fled” after various factions encircled the capital.

Russia, a longtime backer of the Assad regime, said the Syrian president had resigned, left the country and ordered a peaceful transition of power. Russian state newswire Tass later said he and his family had arrived in Moscow where they had been offered asylum.

“The future is ours,” said Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, leader of the triumphant Hayat Tahrir al-Sham Islamist group, in a statement read out on Syrian state television.

HTS, once an affiliate of al-Qaeda, led disparate rebel factions in a lightning 12-day offensive that brought the Assad dynasty to an ignominious end and has shaken the region.

Last week the group seized Aleppo, Syria’s second city, within 48 hours before quickly marching south towards the capital.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed a “historic day in the annals of the Middle East” but sent tanks and infantry into a demilitarised buffer zone on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights.

Netanyahu said a 1974 ceasefire agreement had “collapsed” after Syrian army units abandoned their positions and Israeli forces needed “to ensure no hostile force embeds itself right next to the border of Israel”.

US president-elect Donald Trump wrote in a social media post: “Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, was not interested in protecting [Assad] any longer.”

He added: “Russia and Iran are in a weakened state right now, one because of Ukraine and a bad economy, the other because of Israel and its fighting success.”

US President Joe Biden said Washington would “engage with all Syrian groups”, reflecting how it aims to influence what he described as “the best opportunity in generations for Syrians to forge their own future”.

Biden said the US would seek to ensure Isis could not take advantage of the situation, adding the American military had launched dozens of air strikes on Sunday targeting camps and operatives of the Jihadist group in Syria.

In Damascus, rebel factions were already attempting to enforce law and order, imposing a curfew, warning of legal penalties for theft and errant gunfire, taking over ministries and installing police officers amid widespread looting.

The Financial Times was referred to a new Ministry of Communications building, where rebel officials had set up shop, when inquiring about media access to the city after curfew.

Signalling his efforts to secure an orderly transition, Jolani declared that Syrian state institutions would remain under the supervision of the Assad-appointed prime minister until a handover.

Near the city’s Umayyad square, the streets were littered with thousands of bullet casings — remnants of celebratory gunfire. The sound of artillery shelling and sporadic gunfire could still be heard in central Damascus on Sunday evening.

“I can’t believe it. Everyone is in the street, everyone is shouting,” said Abdallah, a Damascus resident. “It’s something historical. No one has suffered as much as the Syrian people.”

Videos sent to the Financial Times by a Damascus resident showed people inside the presidential palace, rummaging through rooms and smashing pictures of the Assad family.

A man dressed in civilian clothing appeared on Syrian state TV on Sunday morning declaring that the rebels had “liberated” Damascus and released detainees from “regime prisons”.

But while the news sparked celebrations across Syria, it also ushers in a period of huge uncertainty for a nation shattered and fragmented after 13 years of civil war, and for the wider region.

The country borders Turkey, Israel, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon, with HTS working with Turkish-backed rebels operating under the umbrella of the Syrian National Army.

However, Syria is home to myriad factions and the degree of co-ordination between them all is unclear.

Turkey’s foreign minister Hakan Fidan hailed the end of the Assad regime, but also warned that Ankara was concerned “Isis and other terrorist organisations . . . will take advantage of this process”.

An Arab diplomat said regional powers, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Jordan, Russia and Qatar had agreed to co-ordinate efforts to stabilise the situation.

Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali said he was ready to work with any leadership chosen by the people and called for unity.

“We are ready to co-operate and all the properties of the people and the institutions of the Syrian state must be preserved,” he added.

Multiple explosions were heard in Damascus on Sunday afternoon. At least some of the strikes — whose origins were unknown — hit the Syrian security complex.

Assad, a London-trained eye doctor, had ruled Syria since 2000, when he succeeded his late father Hafez al-Assad.

Civil war broke out in 2011 after his forces brutally suppressed a popular uprising.

He managed to cling to power with the backing of Iran and Russia, which provided vital air power, and in recent years his regime had regained control over most of the country.

However, he presided over a hollowed-out, bankrupt state — and even many among his own Alawite community appeared to have given up on the regime after years of conflict and economic hardship.

When HTS mounted its offensive on November 27, regime forces seemed to melt away, while Russia, Iran and Hizbollah, the Lebanese militant group, were all distracted by their own conflicts.

The rebels’ success is a humiliating blow to Iran, whose support for Assad had given it a “land bridge” across Syria to Lebanon and its proxy Hizbollah.

Iran’s foreign ministry on Sunday urged respect for Syria’s “territorial integrity” and called for “an immediate end to military conflicts” in the Arab state.

Assad’s exit is also a setback for Russia, which gained access to air and naval bases on the Mediterranean after intervening in the war in 2015.

Russia said on Sunday its military bases in Syria were “on high alert”. Moscow spoke of “no serious threat to their security”, but Russian military bloggers said it was preparing to evacuate its Khmeimim air base and naval site in Tartus.

John Foreman, a former UK defence attaché in Moscow, said the bases’ loss would be “a major strategic reversal” for Russia and without them it would be “harder for the Russian navy to maintain an enduring maritime presence in the Mediterranean or Red Sea to challenge Nato”.

Additional reporting by Max Seddon in Berlin, John Paul Rathbone in London, Neri Zilber in Tel Aviv, Felicia Schwartz in Washington

Cartography by Steven Bernard