Syria tops agenda at pre-G8 video-conference

June 15, 2013 by AFP

The conflict in Syria topped the agenda in a video-conference on Friday among G8 leaders ahead of their summit next week, and a day after the US stiffened its Syrian policy, Britain and France said.

US President Barack Obama and the leaders of France, Germany, Britain and Italy spoke via video-link and had “an extensive exchange on the subject of the G8 [summit] and in particular on Syria,” an aide to French President Francois Hollande said.

Friday’s talks took place after the White House said it had concluded that Syria had crossed a US red line by using chemical weapons against rebels battling President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.

Officials said Washington would increase military support to rebels, which it is understood could also include the lethal assistance the United States has previously refused to provide.

The talks, among Obama, Hollande, British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta, lasted nearly an hour, the aide said.

A statement from Cameron’s Downing Street office said the leaders had “discussed the situation in Syria and how G8 countries should all agree to work on together a political transition to end the conflict.”

They also discussed ways to help Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan “entrench democracy and build security” there, the statement added.

Recent incidents in Libya have included a failed car bomb attack Tuesday on Italian diplomats in Tripoli; and clashes in Benghazi last Saturday that killed 31 people and led to the resignation of the country’s army chief.

Zeidan is among a number of leaders who Cameron, host of the Group of Eight summit in Northern Ireland on Monday and Tuesday, has invited to join Tuesday’s talks at the G8 summit.

US deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes described the session as the latest in a series of consultations that Obama has held with allies in the run-up to the summit.

Source: now.mmedia.me

UK ‘very reluctant’ to arm Syria rebels, gloomy on peace prospects

London, June 13, 2013 by Reuters

Britain said on Sunday it and other countries were “very reluctant” to arm rebels in Syria even as it warned that success on the battlefield by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad was undermining chances of a Geneva peace conference.

Britain and France worked together last month to lift a European Union embargo on arms shipments to Syrian rebels, giving them the flexibility to send weapons to forces who complain they are dramatically outgunned.

But Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Sunday that no such decision had yet been taken and promised for the first time to give lawmakers a vote in parliament if and when it was.

“There would be a vote one way or the other,” he told BBC TV, saying Britain and the world were faced with an agonizing foreign policy and ethical dilemma.

“People have understandable concerns about the idea of sending arms to anybody in Syria and we’d all be very reluctant to do that,” he said.

“On the other hand, at the moment, people are being killed in huge numbers while the world denies them the right to defend themselves.”

Hague’s intervention comes as U.S.-Russian efforts to convene a peace conference in Geneva are faltering after the rebels lost control of the strategic border town of Qusair last week, weakening their negotiating hand.

One rebel commander has since been quoted as saying the opposition will boycott a peace conference unless it receives arms.

But Prime Minister David Cameron’s government is split on the issue with some ministers fearing such a move could worsen the bloodshed and drag Britain into a protracted conflict.

Hague said he was gloomy about the prospect of a Geneva peace conference.

“The regime has gained ground. That makes the Geneva conference harder to bring about and to make a success. It makes it less likely that the regime will make enough concessions in such negotiations, and it makes it harder to get the opposition to come to the negotiations.

“They’re not coming together in the next couple of weeks. I find that worrying and depressing,” he added.

The United Nations estimates at least 80,000 people have died in the Syrian conflict.

U.N. humanitarian agencies launched a $5 billion appeal on Friday, the biggest in their history, to cope with the fallout from the fighting that has sent some 1.6 million refugees fleeing to neighboring countries.

#Syria opposition makes demands before peace conference

Syria’s divided opposition coalition reiterates its demand to the international community that any negotiations with the regime of President Bashar al-Assad must lead to his resignation, according to a statement leaked to the press Wednesday.

“The National Coalition welcomes international efforts to bring about a political solution… while remaining loyal to the principles of the revolution,” the statement says.

“The head of the regime must resign, alongside the heads of the military and security forces, who must be excluded from the political process,” it adds.

The statement comes four days after the Assad regime said it has agreed to attend the US-Russian proposed international peace conference dubbed Geneva 2.

It also comes after a week of chaotic meetings in Istanbul that have all but paralyzed Syria’s main opposition group.

The opposition’s statement listed three key demands to states that back the Syrian uprising as a condition to going into talks with regime representatives, as envisaged by the US-Russian initiative.

“The killing and destruction committed by the regime must stop,” while rebels must be “given the means to defend themselves”, said the Coalition.

The group also demanded action to “stop the Iranian and [Lebanese Shiite movement] Hezbollah invasion of Syria”, a reference to direct involvement by Assad’s regional backers in a bloody battle for insurgent bastion Al-Qusayr in central Syria.

The Coalition began its Istanbul meetings last Thursday, with four thorny agenda items on its plate. Barring the leaked document, the group appears unable to solve any of its internal differences.

The statement was the first sign of agreement on any of the discussion points, which also included a vote for a new Coalition president, an expansion bid, and the creation of a new rebel government.

The document was marked “agreed”, and a source close to the Coalition told AFP it was final.

05/29/2013 - AFP

Syrian activists quit opposition conference #Syria

The Syrian Revolution General Commission (SRGC) have pulled out of an opposition conference in Cairo, citing political “disputes,” a statement said on Tuesday.

The two-day conference opened on Monday in the Egyptian capital, under the auspices of the Arab League, to forge a common vision for a transition in the country after a blueprint was adopted by world powers on the weekend.

The SRGC said it refuses to “engage in political disputes, which play with the fate of our people and our revolution” or accept “agendas which place the revolution between the anvil and the hammer of international conflicts and the criminal Syrian regime.”

The group also criticized world powers who agreed at a meeting Saturday in Geneva on a transitional plan for violence-hit Syria, in compromise with Russia and China, key allies of the Damascus regime.

“Talking about unifying the opposition is hollow speech aimed at covering up for the failure of the Geneva meeting,” the SRGC said in its statement, also accusing the Syrian regime of committing more massacres in the country.

“The priority now is to continue to strengthen unity among the Syrian revolutionary forces, mainly the Free Syrian Army inside the country, and to secure support for this [military] option by all means,” it added.

“This alone assures blessed victory for the revolution and can change the domestic and international equation,” it said.

The Free Syrian Army is boycotting the conference and has described the Cairo meeting as a “conspiracy.”

The SRGC was formed in August 2011 – five months after the start of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule – by some 44 opposition groups committed to focus on toppling the regime.

More than 16,500 people have been killed in violence in Syria since the uprising erupted in March last year, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

This figure is impossible to independently verify, and the United Nations no longer publishes its own estimates of the death toll.


Source: nowlebanon.com

Clinton and Lavrov set for showdown over #Syria transition plan

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov were heading for a face-to-face showdown over Syria on Friday as major powers prepared for a weekend conference to hash out a political transition plan for the country.

On the eve of Saturday’s conference aimed at ending 16 months of brutal violence in Syria, Clinton and Lavrov were to meet in St. Petersburg in a bid to iron out deep differences over the transition plan being pushed by U.N. envoy Kofi Annan that calls for the formation of a national unity government that would oversee the drafting of a new constitution and elections.

U.S. officials are adamant that the plan will not allow Syrian President Bashar Assad to remain in power at the top of the transitional government, but Russia insists that outsiders cannot dictate the ultimate solution or the composition of the interim administration.

Annan laid out his expectations for the weekend conference in an op-ed in The Washington Post. The future government in Syria, he said “must include a government of national unity that would exercise full executive powers. This government could include members of the present government and the opposition and other groups, but those whose continued presence and participation would undermine the credibility of the transition and jeopardize stability and reconciliation would be excluded.”

Such a proposal does not explicitly bar Assad, but the U.S. and other western powers who will participate in the conference said that is implicit.

Assad also said any future government in Syria must hold free and fair elections for a multiparty government. Russia is Syria’s most important ally, protector and supplier of arms. Diplomatic hopes for have rested on persuading Russia to agree to a plan that would end the Assad family dynasty, which has ruled Syria for more than four decades.

The difference in interpretation between the U.S. and Russia could prove to be the plan’s unraveling. Clinton hopes to press Lavrov on the point at their meeting and over dinner following a gathering of Asia-Pacific foreign ministers that Lavrov is hosting in St. Petersburg.

On Thursday, Lavrov acknowledged that a transition period is necessary to end the violence in Syria, but said Russia had not agreed to all elements of Annan’s plan, in particular any suggestion that Assad would be required to leave.

“We are not supporting and will not support any external meddling,” Lavrov said. “External players must not dictate … to Syrians, but, first of all, must commit to influencing all the sides in Syria to stop the violence.”

He also said the Annan plan was still a work in progress.

But, Clinton, speaking Thursday in Riga, Latvia, said it was “very clear” that all participants in the Geneva meeting, including Russia, were on board with the transition plan. She told reporters that the invitations made clear that representatives “were coming on the basis of (Annan’s) transition plan.”

She said she expects the meeting “to provide an opportunity to make real progress” on that plan.

Source: telegraph.co.uk

US: Geneva talks on #Syria still a work in progress

US officials insisted Friday that plans to hold a key meeting on Syria in Geneva next week were still not crystallized, stressing they wanted to avoid another talking shop.

“We are continuing to work on the staff side to flesh out appropriate parameters for the meeting,” State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said.

“We are prepared to go to a meeting if it’s well-prepared. But we need to make sure it’s well-prepared and those conversations about the parameters of the [political] transition that we need to have are ongoing.”

International envoy to Syria Kofi Annan earlier urged the world to raise the level of pressure on both the Syrian opposition and the regime to try to end the violence that monitors say has claimed 15,000 lives since March 2011.

“If our efforts are to succeed, we shall need the united and sustained support of the international community,” the UN-Arab League envoy told reporters in Geneva. He has called for a conference on Syria in the Swiss city on June 30.

“It’s time for countries of influence to raise the level of pressure on the parties on the ground and to persuade them to stop the killing and start the talking,” he said.

But Annan told reporters that he could not confirm whether the meeting would go ahead to discuss the implementation of his six-point plan, which has been repeatedly breached since it came into force on April 12.

A senior US official said Washington was “trying to figure out the parameters of the conference that will move the ball forward, not just have another talk-show that shows us all split and doesn’t help the Syrians.”

“We are not there yet and we may very well not get there by this date,” the official said, adding that discussions would continue all weekend.

Annan also insisted that Iran had a role to play in helping end the 16-month conflict as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad crushes a rebellion.

The United States has continually accused Iran of helping Assad in his brutal crackdown, and Nuland said the Islamic Republic was currently playing a “destructive role” in Syria.

“In its current posture, Iran is not playing a constructive role and we don’t see any role for it therefore in the conference,” she told journalists.

“Our position is that we agree that they need to be a part of the solution. Right now they are not part of the solution.”


Source: nowlebanon.com

World powers mull #Syria crisis forum

Middle East Online

DAMASCUS - France said on Friday that world powers could hold a summit on the Syrian crisis at the end of June as the deadly revolt against President Bashar al-Assad entered its 16th month.

Activists on the ground called for another day of anti-regime protests after at least another 84 people were killed in clashes and bombings across the country on Thursday, a human rights watchdog said.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said major world powers could hold a conference on the crisis which has cost thousands of lives on June 30 in the Swiss city of Geneva.

“There is a possibility, I don’t know if we’ll get there, but there is a possibility of holding a conference in Geneva on June 30,” Fabius told France Inter radio.

Participants would include countries on the UN Security Council but the meeting would be held “without the constraints of the Security Council,” the foreign minister added.

He also said that talks were under way with Russia on Syria’s future if Assad is ousted.

“The Russians are not today attached to the person of Bashar al-Assad. They clearly see he is a tyrant and a murderer. But they are sensitive about who might take his place, if Assad is ousted. The discussion is about that,” he said.

Russia, along with China, has vetoed two Security Council resolutions against Assad and has vowed to oppose any military intervention.

In reaction to US charges, Russia said on Friday that it was not making any new deliveries of attack helicopters to Syria and had only carried out repairs of helicopters sent there many years ago.

“There are no new supplies of Russian-made attack helicopters to Syria,” the foreign ministry said, adding that “planned repairs were carried out earlier on helicopters supplied to Syria many years ago.”

The ministry reasserted Russia’s position that “all our military and technical cooperation with Syria is limited to the supply of defensive weapons.”

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday accused Russia of fuelling the violence by sending attack helicopters to Syria, which she said were “on the way” and would “escalate the conflict quite dramatically.”

Her spokeswoman Victoria Nuland later said that Russia was sending back “freshly refurbished” helicopters to the regime in Damascus that had been under repairs for six months or more.

On a conciliatory note, Clinton said Thursday that the United States had held “constructive” talks with Russia but urged more action after days of feuding over the bloodshed in Syria.

Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines of a conference in Afghanistan, she said.

“My deputy Bill Burns had a constructive meeting in Kabul with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. We don’t see eye to eye on all of the issues, but our discussions continue,” Clinton told a news conference.

She said that US President Barack Obama would meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at next week’s Group of 20 summit in Los Cabos, Mexico.

Monitors say more than 14,400 people, mostly civilians, have been killed since a peaceful uprising erupted on March 15, 2011, prompting a bloody crackdown by Assad’s forces that eventually prompted an armed reaction.

In other violence on Thursday, 14 people were also wounded when a suicide bomber blew up a vehicle near an important Shiite Muslim shrine in the capital, the state news agency SANA said.

And a car bomb in the northwestern city of Idlib killed and wounded a number of soldiers, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

As on nearly every Friday since the uprising began, activists have called for nationwide demonstrations after weekly prayers, with this week’s slogan being “Always prepared for a strong mobilisation.”

Around the country, the Observatory said 48 civilians were among at least 84 killed in clashes and bombings on Thursday.

Areas in the provinces of Homs, Daraa, Damascus, Aleppo, Deir Ezzor and Idlib were all targeted, the London-based watchdog said.

UN observers on Thursday visited Al-Haffe town in the Mediterranean province of Latakia, a day after Syrian authorities said the area had been “cleansed” of rebel fighters, a UN spokeswoman in Damascus said.

On Wednesday, rebels withdrew from the besieged town and nearby villages that had been under intense regime shelling for eight days, the Observatory said.

The UN Supervisory Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) said the observers reported finding it all but deserted with a strong stench of dead bodies and most state buildings gutted.

State television said the observers had “inspected the vandalism and destruction wrought by the terrorists.”

The United Nations and opposition activists had expressed fears of a massacre if pro-government forces entered the town, just 16 kilometres (10 miles) from Assad’s mainly Alawite hometown of Qardaha.

Opposition sources said anti-Assad groups are to meet in Istanbul on Friday and Saturday in a bid to settle their differences and close ranks.

Source: middle-east-online.com

Though no fans of Assad, #Syria’s Kurds grow increasingly distrustful of uprising

Article by: ZEINA KARAM , Associated Press
Updated: April 18, 2012 - 1:46 AM

BEIRUT - Syria’s Kurds, who have long complained of discrimination under President Bashar Assad, would seem a natural fit to join the revolt against his rule. Instead, they are growing increasingly distrustful of an opposition they see as no more likely to grant them their rights.

Kurdish parties angrily pulled out of a recent conference aimed at unifying the opposition ranks after participants ignored their demands for more rights and recognition in a post-Assad Syria.

A few days after the withdrawal, while the rest of the country was protesting against Assad, Kurds in their main cities of Qamishli and Hasakeh protested against the predominantly Sunni Arab opposition, demanding it back a system that would give them greater say over their own affairs. “We want federalism,” some protesters shouted, carrying red, white and green Kurdish flags.

Tens of thousands of Kurds have been joining in weekly protests against Assad’s regime. But suspicion of the opposition has kept many of Syria’s estimated 2.5 million Kurds — more than 10 percent of the population — sitting on the fence amid the country’s turmoil. As a result, they effectively join Christians, Alawites and other key minorities whose fear for the future if Assad’s secular regime collapses has kept them from joining the uprising in force.

Both the Damascus government and the opposition have courted the Kurds but neither have been willing to make full concessions. The Kurds are also hampered by their own divisions among multiple parties and factions, one of which is accused of openly siding with Assad’s regime.

“The Kurds are being used as political pawns in the battle between Assad’s regime and opposition forces,” said Fares Tammo, whose father, Mashaal Tammo, one of the most vocal and charismatic Kurdish opposition figures, was assassinated in October by gunmen who burst into his apartment in northern Syria.

The Kurds’ hesitation also underlines a major problem for the opposition: its overwhelmingly Sunni Arab nature and the perception that it is dominated by Islamic hard-liners who will discriminate against minorities if given a chance at power.

Omar Hossino, a Washington-based Syrian-American researcher, said it is key to the uprising’s success for the main opposition umbrella group, the Syrian National Council, to integrate the Kurds.

“This in turn could not only reassure other minority groups fearful of Arab Sunni Islamist majoritarianism, but would also guarantee a more pluralist regime in the post-Assad period,” said Ossino.

Still, many in the opposition react to Kurdish demands much like the Assad regime always has. They see the demands as a call to split the country, particularly Kurds’ hope for a federal system that would give them self-rule similar to northern Iraq’s autonomous region of Kurdistan.

The SNC’s chief further angered Kurds with an interview published Monday in which he told Kurds not to cling to the “useless illusion” of federalism.

“It is interpreted as a Kurdish demand for separatism,” Burhan Ghalioun told the Iraqi Kurdish newspaper Rudaw. “The SNC refuses to give the Kurds self-rule because there is no part of Syria where Kurds represent 100 percent of the population … There is no such thing as Syrian Kurdistan.”

He said that if Kurds throw their weight behind the uprising, it would “strengthen their position in the future to demand their rights” and to have a greater role “in Syria in general.”

Mustafa Osso, secretary general of the Azadi Kurdish Party in Syria, said Ghalioun’s comments will “discourage Kurdish parties from joining the SNC.”

“The Kurds have a right to self-determination and one of the options is federalism,” he told The Associated Press. “Federalism is absolutely not the same thing as separatism, which we reject.”

Kurds are the largest ethnic minority in Syria, centered in the poor northeastern provinces of Hasakeh and Qamishli, wedged between the borders of Turkey and Iraq. Areas of the capital Damascus and Syria’s largest city of Aleppo also have sizable Kurdish communities. The Kurdish ethnic group stretches into contiguous areas of Turkey, Iraq and Iran.

Syrian Kurds have long complained of neglect and discrimination. Assad’s government for years argued they are not citizens at all.

They rose up in 2004, clashing with security forces in Qamishli, the capital of Syria’s Kurdish heartland, after a brawl between Kurdish and Arab supporters of rival soccer teams. The unrest spread to the nearby cities of Hasaka and Aleppo. At least 25 people were killed, and the clashes gave Damascus a pretext to further crack down on the Kurds.

Now Assad’s regime has sought to assuage the Kurds enough to prevent them from joining the current revolt against his rule, which erupted early last year. Security forces have refrained from using deadly force against protests that have occurred in Kurdish areas.

Early on, Assad ceded ground on a major Kurdish demand: In April last year, he granted citizenship to some 200,000 Kurds who were registered as aliens before. The decree excluded thousands of other Kurds known as “maktoumeen,” who are unregistered and have no identity cards.

“It was an obvious attempt to pacify us,” said Amina Farman, a 37-year-old Kurd who was among those who acquired citizenship. “I would have been happy and grateful to get it had the circumstances been different. Now it just feels like a meaningless buyout,” she said by phone from Qamishli.

Farman, who was born in Syria, can now for the first time vote, work legally and own property. But the regime still bans Kurds from publicly speaking in their own language or teaching it, prevents Kurdish political and cultural public gatherings and treats Kurds as second-class citizens.

Still, Farman is also not convinced by the opposition and is concerned about the growing militarization of the uprising.

“There’s something not quite right,” she said of the opposition’s disregard of Kurdish rights.

“We want to bring democracy to Syria,” she said. “We don’t want to replace tyranny with tyranny.”

Late last month, an opposition conference in Istanbul ignored Kurdish demands it support political decentralization and Kurdish rights in a post-Assad state. In response, the main Kurdish umbrella group, the Kurdish National Council, walked out of the gathering.

A few days later at a “Friends of Syria” meeting in Istanbul on April 3, SNC head Ghalioun read a national charter for the new Syria that included a pledge to uphold Kurdish rights. But the KNC called the wording too vague.

The Kurds are also suspicious about influence over the SNC by Turkey, which has a history of oppressing its own Kurds and which, they believe, does not want them to gain rights in Syria as well.

Turkey is concerned “that the role played by Kurds in Syria would reflect on Turkey’s Kurds, too,” the Germany-based Kurdish Center for Legal Studies and Consultancy said in an international appeal for support last week.

Fares Tammo, whose Kurdish Future Movement is the only Kurdish party in the SNC, defends his party’s presence in the council.

But, he admits, some of its members “see through chauvinist eyes and try their best to marginalize the Kurdish role.”

Source: startribune.com

Rift develops in Syrian opposition group #Syria

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN | Sun Feb 26, 2012 7:24pm EST

(Reuters) - Prominent members of the main Syrian National Council formed a splinter organisation on Sunday, exposing the most serious rift among President Bashar al-Assad’s opponents since a popular uprising against his repressive rule erupted in March.

 

At least 20 secular and Islamist members of the 270-strong council, which was set up in Istanbul last year, announced the formation of the Syrian Patriotic Group.

The new group is headed by Haitham al-Maleh, a lawyer and former judge who has resisted dynastic family rule by Assad and his father, the late President Hafez al-Assad, since its inception in 1970.

He is joined by Kamal al-Labwani, an opposition leader who was jailed for six years and released in December; human rights lawyer Catherine al-Talli; Fawaz al-Tello, an opposition operative with links to Free Syrian Army rebels and Walid al-Bunni, who was among the most outspoken figures on the council responsible for foreign policy.

“Syria has experienced long and difficult months since the Syrian National Council was formed without it achieving satisfactory results or being able to activate its executive offices or adopt the demands of the rebels inside Syria,” a statement by the Syrian Patriotic Group said.

“The previous mode of operation has been useless. We decided to form a patriotic action group to back the national effort to bring down the regime with all available resistance means including supporting the Free Syrian Army,” the statement, which was sent to Reuters, said.

The statement was issued in Tunis, where members of the Syrian National Council, including those who have effectively split, attended the 50-nation “Friends of Syria” conference last week to try to push Assad to end the military crackdown.

The Syrian National Council has been under mounting pressure from within Syria for not overtly backing armed resistance against Assad, which is being led by the Free Syrian Army.

Assad, from Syria’s Alawite minority, has sent tanks across the country to crush the uprising. The sustained attack on the central city of Homs has pushed the council toward calling more forcefully for international intervention.

The council is headed by Burhan Ghalioun, a respected secular professor who has been advocating democracy in Syria since the 1970s. His term as president has been renewed on a monthly basis with key support from Muslim Brotherhood members of the Council.

Several ‘neo-Islamists’, who are seen as somewhat more liberal than the Brotherhood, have joined the Syrian Patriotic Group, including Imadeldin Rashid, a preacher who was jailed early in the uprising.

(Editing by Michael Roddy)

Source: reuters.com

The Friends of Syria Meeting: Speech of Dr. Burhan Ghalioun, President of the Syrian National Council #Syria

Ladies and Gentlemen, Brothers and Sisters, Dear Friends:

I thank you for your participation in this Friends of Syria Conference. I salute all the righteous souls of our fallen heroes and the journalists who were killed while covering their stories, and pay tribute to our great people, who have not stopped in their struggle to regain their rights, lost since the Assad family took over power. We started a revolution of freedom and dignity in the heart of Damascus, Syria on March 15. Our revolution was peaceful, but the regime’s response was atrocious. It bombed Lattakia from the sea; its soldiers slaughtered the people of Daraa; armored vehicles moved into Hama; and Homs is now being pounded by heavy artillery shelling that targets any Arab or foreign journalists who enter the city. The neighborhood of Baba Amr has been under siege for 20 days, during which most homes have been destroyed, a ban on bringing bread or medicine into the city has been imposed, its hospitals have been destroyed, and its women and children are being abused or killed. All this is to force residents to surrender and submit to the regime’s will. Yet the Syrian people have not surrendered, nor will they give up. A free people was born in Syria, and it does not fear death, nor does it accept to bargain away its long-deprived rights or give up its sovereignty by any definition.

We, the people of Syria, applaud your solidarity with us and your commitment to the cause of our people, and we are proud of our friendship with you. We welcome any assistance you might offer, or means to protect our brothers and sisters who are struggling to end the rule of tyranny. But let me also be frank with you: We are here today to work together for the future of Syria and the Syrian people. There is no room for regional rivalries, nor is there room to move the Syrian issue from one international camp to another. Our goal is a free, independent, sovereign Syria, and meeting the aspirations of the Syrian people is our objective. What is most desired by our people today is to, quite simply, transition to a system of government that is not based on force or under which citizens are terrorized and tortured. The Syrian people do not want a government that, rather than punishing corruption, revels in it. The Syrian people seek a government under which citizenship alone shall guarantee their rights and duties, rather than nepotism, favoritism, and personal loyalties.

What the Syrian people seek –all the Syrian people– is a government that knows the true meaning of accountability and responsibility. What the Syrian people seek is a government bound by the rule of law and under which all citizens of all segments of society are free and equal in their rights and national obligations. The Syrian people, all the Syrian people, want an end to the rule of a Mafia family and the establishment of a forward-looking, democratic, civil state in this new era. A system of government under which no Syrian must give up his dignity and freedom to stay alive. A system of government under which all Syrians have equal opportunities, and can enjoy the fruits of their labor and talents, rather than seeing them go to the close relatives and aides of senior officials.

We in the Syrian National Council, on behalf of the Syrian people, thank you for your help. We value your friendship. However, the key to the solution remains in the hands of Syrians; it is neither an external solution nor a military one. The key to our victory is in unity and mutual understanding.

To all my fellow Syrian brothers and sisters I say: Syria is our goal. With all honesty and openness, I speak before you now as a Syrian Arab citizen who happened to be born a Muslim. The beliefs I hold do not affect my commitments as a citizen, nor do they provide me with a national or cultural identity any more so than they would a Kurdish Syrian or Assyrian or Armenian, or any other ethnicity from across the spectrum of Syria to which each of us may belong.

What is happening today in Syria has nothing to do with a conflict between a minority and a majority. Those who are guilty of violating people’s honor and trampling on their rights, who kill their fellow countrymen and steal from them, have no religion or ethics, and are not of us. They have no humanity. And so I say to my fearful Alawite compatriots: You are my brothers and sisters, and your unique role in rebuilding the new Syria cannot be undertaken by anyone else, because it is a right you have earned through your historic struggle for Syria. No one has the right to hold you responsible for crimes committed by the Assad-Makhlouf Mafia. You are not responsible for the actions of corrupt dictators.

I say to my Christian brothers and sisters: Many of you left your historic Syria in the past in search of freedom and better opportunities. When you left, a dearly held part of Syria died. The new Syria is no longer merely a dream; it is within our reach, and we will work together to ensure that each Christian who needed to leave can return to the land of his or her forefathers.

The new Syria will not be the property of any sect, denomination, or group. Rather, it will be a homeland for all its citizens equally, a democratic civil state based on the rule of law and civil liberties in which our citizenship transcends any social, ethnic, national or sectarian faction. The new Syria will be one to which Syrians will be proud to belong; a Syria in which any citizen has the right to seek the highest positions in government without regard to ethnic origin, religion, or gender.

And to my Kurdish brothers and sisters, I say: Syria belongs to us all. There is no contradiction between a Syria that returns to embrace its Arab character and a Syria that respects your national identity and in which you are assured of equal constitutional rights as a group and as individuals before the law. The new Syria will have a decentralized government, thereby enabling local authorities to take control of their affairs. The people and land of the new Syria will remain united, and the new Syria will avail itself of every opportunity to celebrate the diversity that has enriched its long history. Your identity will be nationally and constitutionally recognized and respected accordingly, and your rights as citizens will be assured. You will play a significant role in rebuilding the Syria of our dreams, the Syria of which we have been dreaming for decades.

To all Syrians, I say: The Syrian National Council will not accept any form of political isolation, nor any form of discrimination based on ethnicity, religion, or gender. We reject any form of government that does not draw its legitimacy from the will of its people. For all those who fear what will happen as result of Assad’s and his thieves’ departure, I say: The Syrian National Council envisions a future Syria based on the rule of law and state institutions within a free and civil society that is founded in a prosperous, diverse, and creative nation. Syrians should never have to leave their country in search of freedom, opportunities, or a decent life.

To all Syrians who fear that chaos or instability will substitute the rule of Assad’s mafia and his supporters, I say that the solution is in our hands as Syrians in our unity and mutual understanding and the road ahead is clear:

• Continue the popular Revolution and resistance until Basher Al-Assad is ousted or a delegated authority takes over as per the Arab League Ministers’ Action Plan.
• Afterwards, a “Presidential Council” will be formed, and will be composed of well-known and national leaders who represent the different segments of society. The Presidential Council will in turn appoint a transitional government of political, military, and technocratic figures who have not fought against the Revolution; a government that will manage the nation’s affairs and maintains its structure and institutions, particularly military and civilian administration.
• The formation of a Truth and Reconciliation Committee in collaboration with civil society associations with the responsibility of investigating crimes, addressing legal and psychological consequences for the terrorism perpetrated by the previous regime, and preventing any sectarian or political reprisals. The committee will work to reconcile and restore the sense of nationalism and human values that have been lacking during this crisis.
• The transitional period ends with the election of members of Parliament, under the supervision of Arab and international monitors. The Parliament will choose a new president, appoint a new representative government, and establish a constitution based on parliamentary, pluralistic, and democratic rule to ensure a civil state in Syria. Only when the Legislative Council holds its first session will we have a new life with a democratic parliament, with God’s help.

We will work with the different state institutions to ensure national security and the safety of all citizens from the first day of the transitional period, and we will not tolerate any acts of revenge or attack or discrimination.

Dear Brothers, Sisters, and Friends,

All of the Syrian people look up to us and we sincerely hope that the assembly of this conference will be a turning point for the Syrian people’s long-awaited and bitter struggle to restore their natural rights and freedoms from the bloody and corrupt military rule. The regime exploited the international community for stability and used humanitarian, patriotic, and noble slogans to discredit an entire nation and rob it of its resources while controlling its children’s lives. The military dictatorship insulted individuality, humiliated the nation, and held its will in contempt, as it did to its culture, standing policy, history, and its foundation. For the past half-century, the military dictatorship has used control and violence as a means of governance. It has led to the bloodshed and abuse of individuals, including children, women, the youth, and the elderly without distinction, where thousands were imprisoned and thousands more were exiled. The Syrian people demand the following:

• First and foremost, the urgent provision of immediate relief, the declaration of disaster areas in Syria, and the establishment of humanitarian corridors to provide emergency assistance to Syrians. We demand that all women, children, and the wounded be evacuated from the besieged cities. Humanitarian and aid collection centers must be established in neighboring countries.
• Second, to secure and ensure freedom of work and movement for international relief and human rights organizations to help people in coping with the harsh conditions across the country.
• Third, to provide a means of protection for Syrian civilians and to remove all threats facing them, in order to create conditions that allow them to freely express their opinions and create an environment that helps foster self-determination.
• Fourth, to recognize the Syrian National Council and support its efforts in coordinating various parties involved in the Revolution within the framework of a national plan to accomplish change and oust the corrupt and tyrannical regime.

We owe it to our revolutionary youth who sacrificed their souls in order to bring freedom to their people; we are inspired and empowered by them. We work for their cause, and our efforts do not compare with their sacrifices. We have trust in all of the Syrian people, and call upon everyone to unite in their work towards freedom for our nation.

Dear Brothers, Sisters, and Friends,

Syria has a long history in the cradle of civilization and humanity. It is at the crossroads of many religions and cultures and remains the land of love, tolerance, and peace. Thanks to the great sacrifices of its children, democratic forces, and the help of the free world, it will soon be the land of freedom, rule of law, citizenship, volunteerism, and prosperity.

God bless the righteous heroes of liberty and peace. God’s mercy and blessings be upon you.

Source: us4.campaign-archive2.com

Clinton blunt with Russia, China over #Syria

By Wyatt Andrews

(CBS News) 

Rebels there say government forces killed at least 50 more people Friday.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in North Africa, where she used her strongest language yet to condemn Syrian President Bashar al-Assad at a conference in Tunis at a conference of world leaders known as “The Friends of Syria.”

The conference was a global gathering of outrage. The result was a new set of demands, the first one being that Assad permit immediate shipments of food water and medicine, or face a world much more angry than it already is.

“If the Assad regime refuses to allow this life-saving aid to reach people in need,” Clinton told the conference, “it will have even more blood on its hands. And so, too, will those nations that continue to protect and arm the regime.”

She was unusually harsh on the Russians and Chinese, blaming them for a share of the violence for their veto of a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have condemned Assad. The secretary called that veto “despicable,” and asked rhetorically, “Whose side are they on”?

Clinton predicted the conference would put new pressure on Assad, but the Saudi foreign minister seemed to issue a pointblank threat. Asked if it was time to arm the Syrian rebels, he replied, “I think it is an excellent (idea) … because they have to protect themselves.”

The conference also marked the debut of the Syrian National Council, a dissident group of exiles asked to form a transitional government. The leader of the group, Burhan Ghalioun, also warned Assad to give up power peacefully — or else, saying in Arabic, “The defenders of the people getting more and more arms. … We are trying to negotiate a solutions, but if that fails, syria will fall into an armed struggle.”

Source: cbsnews.com

Red Cross evacuates Bab Amr wounded #Syria

Aid group in talks to reach further casualties after ambulances move 27 women and children from besieged Homs district.
Watch video here.

Syrian Red Cross workers have moved 27 people from a neighbourhood in the besieged city of Homs and are in negotiations with the government to reach all casualties, a spokesman for the group has said.

Ambulances from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent drove into the suburb of Bab Amr, an opposition stronghold which has been under heavy shelling and gunfire, after negotiations earlier on Friday, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The news came as a major conference was held in Tunisia pushing for aid access.

“The convoy did arrive in Bab Amr, earlier this afternoon, so far they have evacuated seven injured persons, and 20 women and children,” Hicham Hassan, a Red Cross spokesman, told Al Jazeera on Friday.

The injured were taken to a privately owned local hospital, the Red Cross said.

No men, however, chose to be allowed to leave, fearing arrest and torture if they left, Al Jazeera’s James Bays reported from Beirut.

“There have previously been allegations that people have been taken from those hospitals and taken to prisons, and that people have even been tortured, we’ve been told, in the hospitals,” Bays said.

The Red Cross is continuing to negotiate for more access to all the wounded in the city, and injured Western journalists trapped inside have refused to leave until they are assured they will not receive preferential treatment over locals.

Hassan said the situation in the area was getting worse by the hour.

“This for us remains the first step, we want to evacuate all persons who are injured, as long as it takes,” said Hassan.

Journalists remain in Homs

Two injured foreign journalists and the bodies of two others who died in a shelling attack on a media centre were not among those taken out of Bab Amr, according to Hassan.

Syria’s foreign ministry accused “armed groups” of refusing to hand them over, but an opposition activist in the area said the journalists had refused to leave, the Associated Press reported.

A friend of French reporter Edith Bouvier who has been in direct contact with the journalist told Al Jazeera that she and British photographer Paul Conroy had refused to leave until they were guaranteed diplomatic or Red Cross escort. They also said they would not go until a humanitarian corridor had been opened for all Syrians in the city.

Bouvier and Conroy suffered leg wounds in the same shelling in which two other journalists, US reporter Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik, were killed.

Bouvier needs surgery for a broken leg, though her situation is not yet life-threatening, her friend said. Conroy reportedly has less-severe leg injuries. Two other journalists who were present during the shelling but uninjured have also remained in Homs.

The activist said the surviving journalists were unwilling to release Colvin and Ochlik’s bodies to Syrian authorities.

A spokesperson for the Red Cross told the AFP news agency that negotiations in their case were under way.

“Negotiations continue with the Syrian authorities and the opposition in an attempt to evacuate all persons, without exception, who are in need of urgent help,” said Saleh Dabbakeh.

The evacuation was the first time rescuers had entered Bab Amr in 21 days of siege. If a ceasefire results, the flow of people attempting to flee will likely increase, possibly raising tensions in Lebanon, whose border lies just 30km to the west.

There, politicians are deeply divided over Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, which has long asserted itself in Lebanese affairs.

“If there is a pause in the fighting … then it’s likely I think that more people will come across the border, and I think there is going to be a problem, it’s not only a humanitarian problem,” Bays said. “The Lebanese government does not even want to call these people refugees.”

The Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC) activist network reported the deaths of rat least 50 of people on Friday as footage of street protests emerged from Homs, Qamishili, Aleppo, Idlib, Deraa and the suburbs of Damascus.

The LCC said most of the deaths occurred in the central city of Hama.

Source: aljazeera.com

#Syria’n activist Razan Ghazzawi (@RedRazan) is freed by authorities for a second time

Monday, 20 February 2012

Prominent blogger Razan Ghazzawi currently works at the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression where she was reportedly arrested last week. (File photo)

By Al Arabiya and Agencies
 

Syrian authorities have freed prominent blogger Razan Ghazzawi, along with six other female activists arrested last week during a security raid on the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression, located in central Damascus and headed by rights activist Mazen Darwish.

It was her sister Nadine who confirmed the news on Twitter: “@NadineGhazzawi: #FreeRazan #Syria Sister is home…but she can’t leave the country anymore…they won’t allow her”.

The arrest is yet another sign of the efforts deployed by the government to crack down on bloggers and activists and to put out all social media platforms supporting the revolution.

The women were released late Saturday, while other male activists from the same group, including Darwish, remain in custody.

Razan and the other women were ordered to report to the police on daily basis in order to pursue their interrogation. According to human rights lawyer Anwar Bunni, the authorities are investigating the sources of information used by the center, as well as its origin of funding.

Since the start of the Syrian uprising, nearly a year ago, Razan, an English literature graduate from Damascus University, has been arrested (and freed) twice, becoming a symbol of the opposition to the Assad’s regime. Her first arrest last December took place by the border while on her way to attend a conference in Jordan.

The U.S.-born Syrian blogger is known for her fierce criticism of the Syrian government, mostly expressed on her blog Razaniyyat (razanghazzawi.com),
and via her twitter account @RedRazan.

Ghazzawi currently works at the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression where she was reportedly arrested last week. Many believe the blogger was released (twice) thanks to propagated media and online campaigns that drew attention to her situation and possibly because she carries a U.S. passport as well.

In one of her latest blog posts Razan wrote: “People who do not live in a country that is living a revolution may not know that time, is revolutionaries’ biggest enemy.”

Source: english.alarabiya.net

#Syria must not turn into ‘Iraqi scenario’

Syria’s territorial integrity must be preserved in order to avoid an “Iraqi scenario”, according to Rafik Abdessalem, the Tunisian foreign minister.

Mr Abdessalem said participants at the Rome meeting of the so-called ‘5+5’ states had agreed on the need to defend Syria’s territorial unity Photo: AFP

Syrian opposition groups will take part in an international conference on the crisis in Syria on Friday, he said.

“The Syrian National Council and other opposition groups will be represented at the Tunis meeting,” Mr Abdessalem said on Monday following a meeting of foreign ministers from Mediterranean region states in Rome.

“There has been enough killing. There must be radical political change,” Mr Abdessalem said after meeting with his counterparts from Algeria, France, Italy, Libya, Malta, Mauritania, Morocco, Portugal and Spain.

Mr Abdessalem said participants at the Rome meeting of the so-called “5+5” states had agreed on the need to defend Syria’s territorial unity: “We don’t want an Iraqi scenario … We have to preserve the integrity of Syria.”

“I don’t think any Arab country is going to ask for military intervention (in Syria). European countries don’t want it either,” he said.

Referring to the “Friends of Syria” conference on Friday, he added: “We believe that on the 24th of this month, we shall send a strong message to the Syrian government.”

Giulio Terzi, the Italian foreign minister, said of the meeting: “It has to be inclusive. Of course the opposition has to be present.”

Mr Abdessalem had said in Tunis on Friday that the SNC, the largest opposition group in strife-ridden Syria, would not be officially represented at the conference.

Source: AFP


Source: telegraph.co.uk