The Prime Minister and Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabor Al Thani at the “Friends of Syria” group conference in Marrakesh yesterday.
MARRAKESH/damascus: Arab and Western states recognised the National Coalition as the sole representative of Syrians yesterday, as the opposition bloc urged the US to review its blacklisting of jihadist rebels.
The declaration issued at a “Friends of Syria” meeting in Morocco coincided with battlefield gains by jihadists fighting Assad’s forces, and a rapidly deteriorating refugee situation as winter sets in.
Explosions outside the Syrian interior ministry, including a car bomb, killed seven people and wounded 50 others yesterday, a security official said.
Interior Minister Mohammad Al Shaar and other top ranking officials escaped unharmed, state television reported.
State news agency Sana said earlier that three bombs struck outside the ministry in the capital’s southwestern district of Kfar Sousa, one of them a car bomb.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 25 people were killed and wounded. Images from the scene broadcast by the pro-government Al Ikhbariya television channel showed piles of rubble, and blood on the ground.
The adjacent building housing the Egyptian embassy was also hit, Egypt’s official Mena news agency reported. “An embassy employee was injured, and the building was damaged,” Mena quoted Egyptian diplomat Alaa Abdel Aziz as saying.
“Today, full recognition is given to the National Coalition as the sole representative of the Syrian people,” Moroccan Foreign Minister Saad Eddine El Othmani told a news conference after the meeting his government hosted in the southern city of Marrakesh.
The talks on the 21-month conflict rocking Syria brought together representatives from 130 countries, including about 60 ministers, the Syrian opposition and international organisations.
They came just a day after US President Barack Obama endorsed the National Coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, following a similar move by the European Union. Russia, the Assad regime’s most powerful ally, expressed surprise, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov saying “the United States has decided to place all its bets on an armed victory of the National Coalition”.
In its communique, the Friends of Syria again called on Assad to stand down, and stressed his regime would not escape punishment for violations of international law. It also warned Damascus against using chemical weapons, saying this “would draw a serious response from the international community”.
Qatar urged Assad to accept that rebels seeking his overthrow would eventually defeat him and called on him to step down to avoid further bloodshed.
“Please. What happened is enough, you should take the brave decision to stop this bloodshed, this destruction and withdraw and allow the Syrian people to form a government and state that they believe is appropriate,” said H E Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabor Al Thani, Qatar’s prime minister and foreign minister.
“The result is clear, but how much more blood would the Syrians have to pay to achieve their goal,” he told a news conference after the meeting. “I hope that the Syrian leadership acknowledges the truth. The truth is the truth and the people will win.”
British Foreign Secretary William Hague described the growing recognition of the National Coalition as “real progress”. “Then the important thing is to channel more assistance through them - in our case... non-lethal assistance... and then of course we need more humanitarian aid.”
Those at the meeting also called for unimpeded access for humanitarian groups inside Syria.
Under pressure to unite, the Syrian opposition agreed in Doha on November 11 to establish the coalition and group the various rebel forces under a supreme military council.
But jihadist rebels in Aleppo, a key front line in northern Syria, rejected the agreement, saying they want an Islamic state.
Among them was Al Nusra Front, which the United States blacklisted on Tuesday as a “terrorist” organisation, citing its links to Al Qaeda in Iraq.
National Coalition chief Ahmed Moaz Al Khatib called on Washington to “re-examine” the move. “We can have ideological and political differences with certain parties, but the revolutionaries all share the same goal: to overthrow (Assad’s) criminal regime”. Syria’s influential Muslim Brotherhood said the US decision to blacklist Al Nusra was “wrong and hurried” and that “Assad is the only terrorist in Syria”. Coalition spokesman Yaser Tabbara said the extremist group could be divided into two factions - one that supported the regime and committed acts of terror, and the other that did not - and urged dialogue with the latter.
Agencies
