Opposition chief under fire for talks with Damascus’ allies
ISRAELI government Sunday implicitly confirmed it staged an air strike on Syria last week as President Bashar al-Assad accused the Jewish state of trying to further destabilise his war-torn country.
This came as foreign minister of Damascus ally, Iran, said he welcomed Syrian opposition leader Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib’s stated readiness to hold talks with representatives of Assad’s regime.
However, the Syria’s opposition leader flew back to his Cairo headquarters from Germany to explain to skeptical allies his decision to talk with al-Assad’s main backers, Russia and Iran, in hope of a breakthrough in the crisis.
The Russian and Iranian foreign ministers, and U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden, portrayed Syrian National Coalition leader Moaz Alkhatib’s new willingness to talk with the Assad regime as a major step towards resolving the two-year-old war.
“If we want to stop the bloodshed, we cannot continue putting the blame on one side or the other,” Iran’s Ali Akbar Salehi said yesterday, welcoming Alkhatib’s overtures and adding that he was ready to keep talking to the opposition. Iran is Assad’s main military backer together with Russia.
“This is a very important step. Especially because the coalition was created on the basis of categorical rejection of any talks with the regime,” Lavrov was quoted as saying yesterday by Russia’s Itar Tass news agency.
Four days after an air raid which Damascus said targetted a military complex near the capital, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak spoke to reporters in Munich but refrained from explicitly confirming that Israel staged the strike.
Barak told the Munich Security Conference that it was “another proof that when we say something, we mean it.”
“We say that we don’t think that it should be allowable to bring advanced weapon systems into Lebanon, the Hezbollah from Syria, when Assad falls,” Barak said.
Wednesday’s air strike targetted surface-to-air missiles and an adjacent military complex believed to house chemical agents, according to a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Damascus has threatened to retaliate, further fuelling fears of a regional spillover of the country’s 22-month conflict which the UN says has already left more than 60,000 people dead.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, quoted in Hurriyet newspaper, mocked Syria for its failure to retaliate against its longtime arch-foe.
“Why hasn’t the Syrian army, which has attacked its own innocent people with planes, tanks and shells for 22 months, respond to this Israeli operation?” he asked “Why doesn’t it throw even a pebble?”
In the wake of the strike, U.S. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta told AFP that Washington was increasingly concerned that Syria’s “chaos” could allow Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah movement to obtain sophisticated weapons from Damascus.
Israeli armed forces chief Lieutenant General Benny Gantz yesterday started a visit to Washington with the Syrian conflict and Iran’s controversial nuclear programme on his agenda.
In Damascus, Assad accused Israel of seeking to “destabilise” Syria, state news agency SANA reported.
The raid “unmasked the true role Israel is playing, in collaboration with foreign enemy forces and their agents on Syrian soil,” he told Saeed Jalili, who heads Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.
Iran has joined UN Security Council members Russia and China in consistently backing Assad’s regime throughout the almost two year-long conflict which has also forced more than 700,000 people to flee Syria.
After Khatib met Iranian and Russian representatives in Munich, opposition spokesman Walid al-Bunni told AFP by telephone that Moscow must now pressure Assad to end the spiralling conflict.
“The ball is now in Russia’s court,” the Syrian National Coalition’s Bunni said, although he conceded that there has been “no breakthrough in Russia’s stance.”
Syria’s state-owned daily Ath Thawra also said there has been no shift in Moscow’s stance.
from guardian news
ISRAELI government Sunday implicitly confirmed it staged an air strike on Syria last week as President Bashar al-Assad accused the Jewish state of trying to further destabilise his war-torn country.
This came as foreign minister of Damascus ally, Iran, said he welcomed Syrian opposition leader Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib’s stated readiness to hold talks with representatives of Assad’s regime.
However, the Syria’s opposition leader flew back to his Cairo headquarters from Germany to explain to skeptical allies his decision to talk with al-Assad’s main backers, Russia and Iran, in hope of a breakthrough in the crisis.
The Russian and Iranian foreign ministers, and U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden, portrayed Syrian National Coalition leader Moaz Alkhatib’s new willingness to talk with the Assad regime as a major step towards resolving the two-year-old war.
“If we want to stop the bloodshed, we cannot continue putting the blame on one side or the other,” Iran’s Ali Akbar Salehi said yesterday, welcoming Alkhatib’s overtures and adding that he was ready to keep talking to the opposition. Iran is Assad’s main military backer together with Russia.
“This is a very important step. Especially because the coalition was created on the basis of categorical rejection of any talks with the regime,” Lavrov was quoted as saying yesterday by Russia’s Itar Tass news agency.
Four days after an air raid which Damascus said targetted a military complex near the capital, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak spoke to reporters in Munich but refrained from explicitly confirming that Israel staged the strike.
Barak told the Munich Security Conference that it was “another proof that when we say something, we mean it.”
“We say that we don’t think that it should be allowable to bring advanced weapon systems into Lebanon, the Hezbollah from Syria, when Assad falls,” Barak said.
Wednesday’s air strike targetted surface-to-air missiles and an adjacent military complex believed to house chemical agents, according to a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Damascus has threatened to retaliate, further fuelling fears of a regional spillover of the country’s 22-month conflict which the UN says has already left more than 60,000 people dead.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, quoted in Hurriyet newspaper, mocked Syria for its failure to retaliate against its longtime arch-foe.
“Why hasn’t the Syrian army, which has attacked its own innocent people with planes, tanks and shells for 22 months, respond to this Israeli operation?” he asked “Why doesn’t it throw even a pebble?”
In the wake of the strike, U.S. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta told AFP that Washington was increasingly concerned that Syria’s “chaos” could allow Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah movement to obtain sophisticated weapons from Damascus.
Israeli armed forces chief Lieutenant General Benny Gantz yesterday started a visit to Washington with the Syrian conflict and Iran’s controversial nuclear programme on his agenda.
In Damascus, Assad accused Israel of seeking to “destabilise” Syria, state news agency SANA reported.
The raid “unmasked the true role Israel is playing, in collaboration with foreign enemy forces and their agents on Syrian soil,” he told Saeed Jalili, who heads Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.
Iran has joined UN Security Council members Russia and China in consistently backing Assad’s regime throughout the almost two year-long conflict which has also forced more than 700,000 people to flee Syria.
After Khatib met Iranian and Russian representatives in Munich, opposition spokesman Walid al-Bunni told AFP by telephone that Moscow must now pressure Assad to end the spiralling conflict.
“The ball is now in Russia’s court,” the Syrian National Coalition’s Bunni said, although he conceded that there has been “no breakthrough in Russia’s stance.”
Syria’s state-owned daily Ath Thawra also said there has been no shift in Moscow’s stance.
from guardian news
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