Nov 14/12

SYDNEY — US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has backed an Australian-led plan to protect medical workers and maintain access to hospitals in war-torn Syria, Foreign Minister Bob Carr said Thursday.

Carr said the plan, which would help thousands cut off from basic care, was raised with America’s top diplomat during annual security and defence talks between the two nations in the Australian city of Perth on Wednesday.

The plan would involve securing a commitment from all sides in the conflict to not target medical personnel, ensure there is access to doctors, hospitals and emergency care, and agree not to attack medical facilities.

“I welcome Secretary Clinton’s support and her commendation of Australia’s initiative in supporting medical care for Syrian civilians,” he said in a statement.

The plan has also been positively received by the United Nations, the Arab League, joint special envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi and from European and Arab foreign ministers, he added.

“This is a minimalist plan to protect hospitals and health workers in Syria and help the thousands of families cut off from basic care,” said Carr.

“American support will be critical in securing further international backing.”

Implementation would be monitored by a neutral third party such as a non-government organisation.

Clinton’s backing came as she announced on Wednesday US$30 million in extra humanitarian aid to those affected by the 20-month war in Syria, which has killed some 37,000 people.

The US is the largest contributor to humanitarian aid for Syria, followed by Britain and Australia.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Wednesday announced $30 million in extra humanitarian aid to those affected by the conflict in Syria, as she welcomed its new opposition coalition.

Clinton, in Australia for annual security and defense talks, said the formation of a new Syrian opposition coalition was “a good beginning”.

“We agreed today that the formation of the new Syrian opposition coalition is an important step forward and will help the international community better target our assistance where it is needed most,” she said.

“Today I’m pleased to announce that the US is providing an additional $30 million in humanitarian assistance to help get much-needed food to hungry people inside Syria and to refugees who have fled to Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq.”

Clinton said she welcomed the progress made to broaden and unify the opposition leadership under the National Coalition.

“We have long called for this kind of organization,” she said, but added that Washington now wanted to see that momentum maintained.

“Specifically we urge them to finalize the organizational arrangements to support the commitments that they made in Doha and to begin influencing events on the ground in Syria,” she said.

“As the Syrian opposition takes these steps, and demonstrates its effectiveness in advancing the case of a unified, democratic, pluralistic Syria, we will be prepared to work with them to deliver assistance to the Syrian people.

“We want to see the steps taken that have been promised and we stand ready to assist this new opposition in standing itself up and representing the Syrian people to the regime and the international community.”

The diverse forces involved in the Syrian opposition coalition agreed on Sunday to unify their fighting forces under a supreme military council and to set up a national judicial commission for rebel-held areas in Syria.

The move came after talks in Doha. Washington had pushed the Syrian National Council to broaden its membership, saying it was not representative of all the groups fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad.

-AFP

Nov 12/2012

The Syrian crisis cannot be solved with simple quarantine methods, Turkish Ambassador to Washington Namık Tan has said, reiterating that Turkey and the United States are on the same page concerning the crisis.

”It is obvious that the Syrian crisis can’t be quarantined by palliative treatments,” said Tan. “We are on the same page with the U.S. on the cause of the Syrian crisis’ origin and the parameters of the solution,” he said. “Turkey’s expectations from the U.S. are similar to our expectations from the international community. We want to see an immediate end to the problem bordering Turkey before a spillover.”

Commenting on the Syrian opposition’s fractured structure, Tan echoed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s words in which she criticized the opposition Syrian National Council for not representing all Syrian opposition groups as an umbrella organization.” It is true that it has not been possible to achieve a complete reconciliation between the opposition groups in Syria since the beginning of the crisis,” said Tan. “But while criticizing the opposition in this manner, it also needs to take into account the background of the opposition movement. The fact that the political opposition in Syria has been prohibited for 40 years must not be forgotten. A trust problem among the opposition groups suffering from a lack of communication between each other is normal.”Touching on the possible deployment of NATO’s Patriot missile along the Turkish-Syrian border, Tan said: “We informed NATO a couple of times about the region and Syria. The contingency plans have been prepared by NATO to protect the borders of NATO. It is an ongoing process. So it is not a new development. And it is not possible to give the details about these plans until the work is done.”

On Iran, the second big challenge facing bilateral relations between Turkey and the U.S., Tan seems critical of the sanctions pursued by the Barack Obama administration and its effects on Turkish companies.

The Obama administration said Wednesday it would push for a major shakeup in Syria’s opposition leadership so that it better represents those dying on the front line, can rally wider support and resist attempts by extremists to hijack the revolution against the Assad regime.

Speaking to reporters in Croatia’s capital, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the United States was suggesting names and organizations that should feature prominently in any new rebel leadership that emerges from talks starting next week in Doha, the capital of Qatar.

She dismissed the Syrian National Council, a Paris-based group of regime opponents who have lived in exile for decades, saying its leadership days are over, but it could still play a role. The council was viewed with suspicion by rebels who stayed in Syria and fought the regime of President Bashar Assad.

“This cannot be an opposition represented by people who have many good attributes but have in many instances not been inside Syria for 20, 30 or 40 years,” Clinton said. “There has to be a representation of those who are on the front lines fighting and dying today to obtain their freedom. And there needs to be an opposition leadership structure that is dedicated to representing and protecting all Syrians.”

The shift in policy reflects as much the failure of the SNC to win widespread political legitimacy as the Obama administration’s desire to be seen playing a leading role in shaping an opposition capable of winning the support of frightened Syrian minority groups and replacing Assad.

Republican candidate Mitt Romney has criticized the Obama administration for spending too much time trying to win support for a Syrian political transition plan at the United Nations, where Russia and China have protected Assad from three damning resolutions. And he has called for stronger U.S. leadership in forging a cohesive body to lead Syria from decades of dictatorship.

The Obama administration insists it is already guiding such efforts, but Clinton’s words appeared to highlight that it was stepping up its leadership role. She said the talks next week were sponsored by the Arab League but stressed that she has been constantly strategizing with European and Arab partners on the best path forward.

“We have recommended names and organizations that we believe should be included in any leadership structure,” she said. “We’ve made it clear that the SNC can no longer be viewed as the visible leader of the opposition. They can be part of a larger opposition, but that opposition must include people from inside Syria and others who have a legitimate voice that needs to be heard. So our efforts are very focused on that.”

Clinton said it was no secret that many in Syria, especially minority groups, are fearful about the prospects of Assad’s government being replaced by the Sunni-led opposition. The reasoning is that for the good of the country, they must be assuaged.

“They have no love lost for the Assad regime but they worry, rightly so, about the future,” she said. “So there needs to be an opposition that speaks to every segment and every geographic part of Syria.”

She added: “We also need an opposition that will be on record strongly resisting the efforts by extremists to hijack the Syrian revolution. There are disturbing reports of extremists going into Syria and attempting to take over what has been a legitimate revolution against an oppressive regime for their own purposes.”

Clinton also expressed her regret, but lack of surprise, at the failure of a proposed four-day holiday cease-fire in Syria. Despite the government’s reported commitment, she said, it “did not suspend its use of advanced weaponry against the Syrian people for even one day.”

“The shelling of the suburbs in Damascus was as bad last weekend as at any time in the conflict,” Clinton said.

She said the U.S. would continue to support the diplomatic efforts led by U.N. peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to convince Moscow and Beijing to “change course and support a stronger U.N. action.” But she said the U.S. cannot wait in the meantime.

“Instead, our efforts and those of our partners in the EU and Arab League are focused on pressuring the regime,” Clinton said. A key plank is “helping the opposition unite behind a shared, effective strategy that can resist the regime’s violence and being able to provide for a political transition that can demonstrate more clearly than has been possible up until now what the future holds for the Syrian people once the regime is gone.

Associated Press

30/09/12

Stop shipping weapons to Syria, the United States told Iran, amidst fears that the Islamic Republic is inflaming the conflict between the regime of Bashar al-Assad and opposition fighters. Clinton said that neighboring countries should step in and block the flow of weapons to the embattled country after Iranian state media quoted a Revolutionary Guard commander saying that elite forces were on the ground in Syria. The United States has so far dedicated about $45 million to nonlethal aid for Syrian opposition forces. The Iran commander claimed that military forces were in Syria but not engaged in combat roles.

26/09/12

UNITED NATIONS — US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday appealed for the “paralyzed” UN Security Council to make a new attempt to reach an accord to end the Syria conflict.

“The atrocities mount while the Security Council remains paralyzed and I would urge that we try once again to find a path forward” so that the council can try to end the violence in Syria and stop it spreading to other countries, Clinton said.

Her appeal came amid mounting attempts by Western nations to press Russia and China to ease their opposition to UN action against Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad.

Russia, Syria’s key ally, and China have used their powers as permanent members of the 15-member council to block three resolutions that could have led to economic sanctions against Assad.

At the same Security Council meeting on the Middle East, France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said it was “shocking” that the council had been unable to act in the 18 months since the uprising against Assad started.

“As the international community, we must be united to stop the violence and help initiate a process of political transition. We must find a common response. We owe it to the people,” said Germany’s Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle.

11/09/12

The Syrian opposition’s infighting, incompetence and lack of leadership have kept the beleaguered Bashar al-Assad alive, or so argues Syrian journalist Malik Al-Abdeh in a recent Foreign Policy piece.

Al-Abdeh insists that, instead of blaming the West for lack of military support, the Syrian National Council (SNC) should look in the mirror at its own defects and should quit demanding a Libya-type intervention. The author then clearly explains the difference between Syria and Libya:

But the West’s involvement in Libya came about partly because the Libyan opposition demonstrated a basic capacity for leadership. A transitional council was formed within one week of the first anti-Qaddafi protests. That council appointed a commander-in-chief to lead the rebel forces. It sent emissaries around the world to represent the opposition to foreign governments, and it immediately established contacts with grassroots constituencies inside the country.

The SNC, formed in Istanbul last year to head a post-Assad democratic transition, has been accused of being dominated by Islamists. In fact, the opposition council has failed to appeal to its own rebel forces, let alone the international community, opening a void that is now being filled by jihadists.

Al-Abdeh, crystalizing the opposition’s isolation, underlines the fact that no country apart from Libya has recognized the SNC as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people.

The SNC’s poor media strategy and inconsistent messaging have allowed the Assad regime to frame the narrative, which has enabled Damascus to convincingly convey, for example, that dangerous Islamist radicals are leading the opposition movement.

In addition, the regime has been able to leave the impression that Assad has long-term staying power, a message that has kept many Syrians on the fence if not supportive of the government. Such a dearth of proactive thinking leads Al-Abdeh to conclude that “the SNC’s fundamental failure is not one of organization but of imagination.”

The author also asserts that part of what drives the stalemate is that the SNC was created by a series of delicately constructed alliances between competitors: secularists and Islamists, Arabs and Kurds, party affiliates and independents, tribal chiefs and Facebook activists.

Basma Kodmani, a founding member who resigned from the SNC just weeks ago, believes the council is ill-equipped to deal with the situation due to the aforementioned factionalism. Kodmani recently expanded upon this point during an interview with Reuters:

“The groups inside the council did not all behave as one in promoting one national project. Some have given too much attention to their own partisan agendas, some to their personal agendas sometimes. That resulted in a major weakness in connecting closely with the groups on the ground and providing the needed support in all forms.”

The State Department has been leery of fully committing to the SNC due to the perceived lack of grassroots connections. This mentality is justifiable considering how American leaders were burnt in Iraq, where the U.S., devoid of any semblance of ground truth, picked illegitimate figures to lead the postwar government.

Al-Abdeh illustrates the attitude of American officials by pointing out how Secretary of State Hillary Clinton refused to meet an SNC delegation in Istanbul last month, opting to meet with independent activists instead.

The SNC’s authority crisis lies in the fact that its sources of “legitimacy” are external, including Arab money and Western recognition. Although Arab money still flows into its coffers, the West is looking for alternatives after growing impatient with the SNC’s internal divisions.

The biggest challenge to identifying a sound alternative is the Muslim Brotherhood, which has used the SNC to camouflage its parochial agenda. The Brotherhood will go to any length to secure power and will resist any attempts to establish a truly representative body. Al-Abdeh goes on to claim the Brotherhood and its ilk are not a far cry from Assad:

It must surely be a worrying development when those working to bring down dictatorship are found to be borrowing from the dictator’s manual.

The Syrian opposition must demonstrate a modicum of leadership, according to Al-Abdeh, before the international community makes “a Libya-type investment in men, material and political will.”

10/09/12

#Syria, medical and humanitarian help.

Please visit http://www.syrianassistance.com/index.html to view article!

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday said a new UN resolution on Syria would be pointless if it had “no teeth”, as President Bashar al-Assad would ignore it.

On a visit to Russia, Hillary Clinton said she was willing to work with Moscow on a new UN resolution on Syria but warned that the United States would step up support to end Assad’s regime if the measure did not carry consequences.

“There is no point to passing a resolution with no teeth because we’ve seen time and time again that Assad will ignore it and keep attacking his own people,” Hillary told reporters at the end of an Asia-Pacific summit.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Saturday after talks with Hillary that he hoped to seek UN Security Council approval for a peace plan agreed in June in Geneva that called for a ceasefire and political transition.

Hillary said she hoped for progress but was “realistic” that the United States and Russia had differences on Syria.

The United States has said it is providing non-lethal assistance to the opposition in Syria, which has been a Moscow ally since the Cold War.

Meanwhile, Syrian warplanes bombed a residential district of Aleppo yesterday, killing and wounding dozens of people, a day after rebels overran army barracks in the neighbourhood, opposition activists in Syria’s largest city said.

They said the air raid destroyed a residential building in the Hananu neighbourhood, one of several in eastern Aleppo under insurgent control. The death toll was not immediately clear but bodies and wounded people were being dug out from the rubble.

The aerial bombardment has burst a main water pipeline, causing serious shortages of water in Aleppo, activists added.

The eastern sector of Aleppo, Syria’s commercial and industrial capital, has drawn air strikes since rebels attacked the Hananu barracks and freed scores of army deserters, according to opposition campaigners reached by telephone.

09/09/12

(Reuters) - Syrian warplanes bombed a residential district of Aleppo on Sunday after rebels overran army barracks there, killing and wounding dozens of people and exacerbating a water shortage in Syria’s biggest city after a pipeline burst, activists said.

President Bashar al-Assad has resorted increasingly to devastating aerial bombardment to keep rebels fighting to overthrow him in check after they took control of residential neighborhoods and made forays into the center of Aleppo, Syria’s commercial and industrial capital.

The almost 18-month-old uprising has polarized global powers, preventing effective international intervention, and is turning increasingly sectarian with the risk of spillover into adjacent Arab states with similar communal divisions.

Insurgent advances have forced Assad to deploy warplanes, major armored forces and thousands of troops to prevent the fall of Aleppo, which would free up supply lines to the interior of Syria from Turkey where rebels have sheltered.

Decisive victory has eluded both sides, with rebels lacking heavy weapons needed to down aircraft and knock out artillery and Assad loath to send conscript troops of questionable loyalty into cities to re-establish dominance on the ground.

Instead, government forces have been bombarding population centers to try to turn residents against rebels dug in there, according to diplomats following the revolt.

Sunday’s air raid destroyed a residential complex in the Hananu neighborhood, one of several in eastern Aleppo under rebel control, opposition activists told Reuters by phone.

The death toll was not immediately clear but dozens of bodies and wounded people were being dug out from the rubble. Video footage from the area showed scores of people searching and digging in the debris of a flattened building.

On-scene details could not be independently verified due to Syria’s severe restrictions on international media access.

WATER CRISIS IN ALEPPO

Aerial bombardment had also wrecked a main water pipeline, causing serious shortages of water in Aleppo, activists added.

“A water pumping station in al-Mayadeen was hit. There were rebels in the area, but this is not a justification to bomb civilian infrastructure,” activist Ahmad Saeed said.

A businessman who went from the northwest of the city to Hananu to bury his grandmother - Aleppo’s main cemetery is situated in the district - said the ground was shaking with artillery explosions.

“I passed by several (rebel) Free Syrian Army checkpoints. The fighters looked quite relaxed. The army was nowhere to be seen but it was bombing heavily,” he said.

The eastern sector of Aleppo has drawn air strikes since rebels attacked the Hananu barracks and freed scores of army deserters, opposition campaigners said.

In the capital Damascus, the army continued to shell Sunni Muslim neighborhoods supportive of the revolt against Assad, whose minority Alawite sect has dominated Syria’s power structure for decades.

Shelling again struck the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk in south Damascus and the adjacent impoverished neighborhood of Hajar al-Aswad, home to thousands of refugees from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Rebels have launched guerrilla attacks on loyalist forces from Sunni neighborhoods and suburbs that surround Damascus, while Assad has been increasingly relied on elite divisions comprised of Alawites to keep overall control of the capital.

BUS AMBUSHED

Syrian state media said four people were killed in a “terrorist attack” that targeted a bus in the province of Homs. The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said civilians and soldiers were in the bus.

Assad, whose family has rule Syria for 42 years, has repeatedly said the revolt is the handiwork of Islamist “terrorists” and not a popular movement for democratic change.

The revolt began with peaceful street protests that prompted a bloody security crackdown, leading to an armed insurgency.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Sunday she was pessimistic about closing the gap with Russia on how to defuse the Syrian conflict before world leaders gather for the U.N. General Assembly later this month.

Clinton said she made the case for increasing pressure on Assad in talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at a summit of Pacific Rim states in Vladivostok, Russia over the weekend.

“If we can make progress in New York in the run-up to the U.N. General Assembly, we can certainly try,” Clinton told reporters. “But we have to be realistic. We haven’t seen eye-to-eye on Syria. That may continue. And if it does continue then we will work with like-minded states to support the Syrian opposition to hasten the day when Assad falls.”

Chinese and Russian leaders restated their firm opposition to what they see as U.S. meddling in Syria, a reference to calls for harsh U.N. sanctions to isolate Assad, for whom Moscow is Syria’s most important ally and arms supplier.

“Our U.S. partners prefer measures like threats, increased pressure and new sanctions against both Syria and Iran. We do not agree with this in principle,” Lavrov said.

Clinton said she would continue to work with Lavrov to see if the U.N. Security Council could formally endorse an agreement brokered by former U.N. Syria envoy Kofi Annan which envisages a transitional governing authority for Syria.

But she added that such a step would only be effective if it carried specific penalties if Assad fails to comply - something Russia has repeatedly resisted.

Turkey, Saudi Arabia and most Arab nations have sided with their Syrian Sunni co-religionists at the forefront of the revolt.

09/09/12

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday acknowledged deep differences with Russia over how to handle the crisis in Syria, saying she would continue to try to convince Moscow to back increased international pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad even if such a step is unlikely.

A day after Russia soundly rejected her call for U.N. sanctions to be imposed on Syria if Assad refuses to stop fighting and relinquish power, Clinton said she was “realistic” in her approach. She said that if the Russians refused to go along the United States and its friends would boost their support for the Syrian opposition.

“The United States disagrees with the approach on Syria,” she told reporters at a news conference at the end of the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit where she was filling in for President Barack Obama. “We have to bring more pressure to bear on the Assad regime to end the bloodshed and begin a political, democratic transition.”

The Obama administration has been hoping to jack up pressure on Assad at the upcoming United Nations General Assembly session and potentially introduce a new U.N. Security Council resolution that would include sanctions. Russia and China have blocked three previous similar resolutions because they could lead to sanctions.

In discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Clinton said she had underscored the resolution “will only be effective if it includes consequences for non-compliance.”

“There is no point in passing a resolution with no teeth because we have seen time and time again that Assad will ignore it and keep attacking his own people,” she said.

But, she allowed that convincing the Russians would be a tough, if not impossible sell.

“We have to be realistic,” she said. “We haven’t seen eye-to-eye with Russia on Syria.”

“That may continue, and if it does continue, then we will work with like-minded states to support the Syrian opposition to hasten the day when Assad falls and to help prepare Syria for a democratic future and help it get back on its feet again,” she said.

After meeting Clinton on Saturday, Lavrov said bluntly Russia opposes penalties against the Assad government, in addition to new ones against Iran over its nuclear program, in part because they harm Russian commercial interests.

“Our American partners have a prevailing tendency to threaten and increase pressure, adopt ever more sanctions against Syria and against Iran,” Lavrov said. “Russia is fundamentally against this, since for resolving problems you have to engage the countries you are having issues with and not isolate them.”

Unilateral U.S. sanctions against Syria and Iran increasingly take on an extraterritorial character, directly affecting the interests of Russian business, in particular banks, he said.

“We clearly stated that this was unacceptable, and they listened to us. What the result will be, I don’t know,” Lavrov said.

Clinton had told Lavrov that the Security Council needs to do more to send “a strong message” to Assad, given the escalating level of violence in Syria, said a senior U.S. official, adding that the council risks “abrogating its responsibility” if it fails to act. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the conversation was private.

Russia and China have blocked three Security Council resolutions that would have punished Syria if the Assad government did not accept a negotiated political transition. Clinton said in Beijing this past week that the U.S. was “disappointed” by the vetoes.

She had earlier called the actions “appalling” and said they put Russia and China on the “wrong side of history.” That assertion was rejected by Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi at a news conference with Clinton on Wednesday, when Yang said history would prove China’s position to be correct.

The question of sanctions against Syria and Iran will be a main topic of conversation among officials later this month at the U.N. General Assembly.

Despite Russia’s refusal to join the U.S. and its allies in seeking more pressure against Syria and Iran, Clinton said the Obama administration wants Congress to remove Russia from a 1974 law that denies Russia normal trade relations with the U.S because of Soviet-era laws restricting the emigration of Jews.

Now that Russia has joined the World Trade Organization, membership that the United States long supported, Clinton said it would be “ironic” if American businesses were unable to do business in Russia because of U.S. law.

08/09/12

Syrian refugees flock to Turkey and Jordan: Tens of thousands of Syrian refugees have spilled across the border into Turkey and Jordan since the 17-month uprising in their homeland began.

By Karin Brulliard, Published: September 7

Russian President Vladimir Putin will have a brief meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Saturday on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Vladivostok, his aide said on Thursday.

At the APEC summit on September 7-9, member states will be represented at the top level, whereas the United States will be represented by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. President Barack Obama will be unable to attend due to an ongoing election campaign in his country.

The Russian president and the top U.S. diplomat will have a brief meeting during the presidential reception for top-level summit guests.

The Kremlin said the meeting would be held on the initiative of the U.S. and will “continue the serious conversation that Putin and Obama had [during the G20 summit] in Los Cabos.”

“Maybe, she [Clinton] will share her impressions of the [U.S.] domestic policy developments. The Republican congress is over, the Democratic convention will either be over or about to be completed. Syria will definitely be among the international issues up for discussion,” presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said.

06/09/12

Jim Watson, Pool/Associated Press - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, left, speaks with Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang, right, during a bilateral meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, on Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2012.

DILI, East Timor — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday her visit to China a day earlier was useful though she left with little to show for it on divisive issues from Syria’s civil war to territorial disputes over the South China Sea.

“Even when we disagree — believe me we can talk very frankly now — we can explore the toughest issues without imperiling the whole relationship,” Clinton said in Dili a day after meeting President Hu Jintao and other Chinese officials in Beijing.