CAIRO: EU foreign ministers meeting in Cairo yesterday welcomed a newly formed Syrian opposition bloc, urging it to bring in more regime dissenters, as the coalition chief appealed for weapons.
After four days of talks in the Qatari capital Doha, Syrian opposition groups agreed on Sunday to unite under the banner of the National Coalition headed by moderate Muslim cleric Ahmed Moaz Al Khatib.
Khatib called on world powers to arm rebels, telling AFP they desperately needed arms if they were to “cut short the suffering of the Syrians and their bloodshed.”
“We need specialised weapons,” he added, without elaborating.
The conflict in Syria has killed more than 37,000 since it broke out in March 2011, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Fierce battles and army shelling in and near Damascus yesterday killed at least 41 people, mostly civilians, a watchdog said, as warplanes launched more air raids on a town on the Turkish border.
A car bomb, meanwhile, struck the town of Ain Al Fijeh, west of the capital, “injuring a number of people and causing widespread material damage,” said Syrian state television.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who was in Cairo for talks between European Union and Arab League ministers, urged the international community to recognise the body. “Our hope is that the different countries recognise the Syrian national coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people... France’s role is to make that hope possible,” Fabius told reporters in Cairo.
“The opposition has taken a huge step forward,” said Fabius, who met earlier with both Khatib and George Sabra, head of the Syrian National Council, the main opposition group that finally agreed to join the wider, more representative bloc.
“It is a very important milestone and a very big step towards (recognition),” British Foreign Secretary William Hague told reporters.
“We do now want to see the details of the agreement made in Doha implemented, and we want to see in practice that the Syrian opposition or the coalition now being assembled is as inclusive as possible of opposition groups and all communities in Syria,” said Hague. “We want to see that they have support inside Syria. That is a very crucial consideration. If they do all these things, well then, yes, we will be able to recognise them as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people.”
russia, GCC to meet
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is to meet today in Riyadh with Arab foreign ministers of the Gulf for talks expected to highlight their differences on the Syrian conflict.
The Gulf Cooperation Council aims to “put an end to the suffering of the Syrian people through rapid political transition and a halt to the bloodshed,” GCC chief Abdel Latif Al Zayani said in a statement.
The meeting follows the Gulf states’ recognition of the newly formed National Coalition following talks last week in Doha as the “legitimate representative” of the Syrian people. In contrast, Russia on Monday urged the new grouping to spurn foreign interference and drop its rejection of a negotiated solution to the conflict with President Bashar Al Assad’s regime, a longtime ally of Moscow.
The GCC - grouping Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - has supported the anti-regime revolt in Syria that broke out in March 2011 and has cost tens of thousands of lives.
Iran also will bring parties to the Syrian conflict to Tehran on Sunday to participate in a “national dialogue,” the foreign ministry said yesterday.
The meeting will focus on promoting diplomacy and ending the violence in Syria, Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian told the Arabic-language Al Alam channel.
“Representatives of the Syrian government will hold talks with representatives from tribes, political parties, (political) minorities and the opposition,” he said, without elaborating.
Armed opposition groups reject any Iranian involvement in finding a solution to the conflict in Syria, reflecting the view the US and some Western and Arab countries hold that Tehran is discredited by its unwavering support for the regime of President Bashar Al Assad.
Iran, which in turn accuses Western and Arab countries of arming the rebels fighting Assad’s forces, has said repeatedly that it is in contact with Syrian opposition groups, without identifying which ones.
Russia and Iran advocate a political solution and dialogue between the government and opposition groups to end the Syrian crisis.Agencies
