Tag: Bashar al-Assad

President of Syria

Syria Opposition launched a National Council in Istanbul

Syria Opposition launched a National Council in Istanbul

(Dp-news)

ISTANBUL- Syrian dissidents meeting in Turkey have formally announced the creation of the final Syrian National Council. The structure and aims of this council were announced Sunday at a news conference in Istanbul.

Opposition figure and Paris-based Burhan Ghalioun, one of the main opposition figures abroad, read out the founding statement of the council, which was signed by major Syrian opposition figures.

“The Syrian Council is open to all Syrians. It is an independent group personifying the sovereignty of the Syrian people in their struggle for liberty,” Ghalioun said.

SNC aims “to unify all groups at Syria opposition and looks at pushing forward on ground protests inside the country to topple the regime and establish the new democratic Syrian civil state.” according to its statement.

Ghalioun said that peaceful means are the only solutions to the conflict in Syria.

Ghalioun assured that the aims of the council were to present a united opposition front and overthrow Syria’s regime. The newly formed council rejected foreign intervention but asked for U.N. articles that would protect civilians in the country.

It has also vowed to push for the creation of a democratically elected civilian state and to fulfill the aspiration and goals of the Syrian revolution that started six months ago.

Syrian NC statement also rejected any foreign interference in Syria and urged the international community to recognize the legitimacy of the group.

The council “is a frame for the opposition and the peaceful revolution and represents the revolution inside and outside,” Burhan Ghalioun, the chairman of almost 230-member council, told reporters in Istanbul.

Ghalioun said he had no worries about gaining the support of the international community and that the council expected to have a busy schedule of meetings with friendly countries.

In turn, Basma Kadhmani said that Syrian NC consists of three main bodies, a General Assembly, a Secretariat and Executive Committee.

Kadhmani said “Committee consists of 5 Muslim Brotherhood, 4 Damascus Announcement, 9 Independents, 4 Kurds, 6 local Activists and 1 Assyrian.”

Many Syrian opposition groups, committees and parties have already signed the announcement; Damascus Announcement, Muslim Brotherhood, Local Coordination Committees, General Council of Syrian Revolution in addition to many independent activists inside and outside Syria.

The Syrian National Council was first founded in the Turkish city in late August, when a group of Syrian opposition and activists had announced the creation of the primary Syrian National Council.

The Syrian government has banned most foreign journalists from entering the country and placed heavy restrictions on local media coverage, making it difficult to independently verify events and death toll on the ground.

The UN estimates that about 2,700 people have been killed in a violent government crackdown on pro-reform protests that began mid-March.

The government says that the movement against President al-Assad`s regime does not have popular support and blames violence on “armed terrorist groups”. It says that more than 700 soldiers and police have been killed in the uprising.

via Syria Opposition launched a National Council in Istanbul | English | NEWS | DayPress.

October 3, 2011
Turkey May Freeze Assad’s Assets; Libya’s Qaddafi Still at Large

By Miles Weiss

Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) — Syria is facing mounting pressure for political reform as Turkey signaled it might freeze some $500 million in assets belonging to President Bashar al-Assad.

Turkey, which has imposed an air, land and sea blockade on its neighbor, would freeze all of Assad’s assets, including his bank accounts, if the United Nations enacts an embargo on Syria, Milliyet reported. The Turkish Finance Ministry’s criminal investigation unit is following Syrian banking activities in the country, the Istanbul-based newspaper reported.

White House National Security Advisor Tom Donilon issued a statement yesterday thanking Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, along with the Gulf Cooperation Council, for opposing the violence in Syria. More than 3,600 Syrian civilians have been killed since political protests began in March, according to figures compiled by Ammar Qurabi of the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria.

The country’s death toll rose by 14 yesterday, Al Jazeera reported, citing local activists. According to the Al Jazeera news agency, Syrian police shot dead 7 protesters across the country yesterday after killing 32 on Friday.

The Syrian army took control of the town of Rastan and detained 3,000 people yesterday as soldiers who had defected to join the activists withdrew from the town to Hama, Al Arabiya said. The former soldiers left in an attempt to spare civilians from random shelling by government troops, Walid Abdel Qader, a Syrian opposition figure, told the news service.

In Libya, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s military mission is nearing completion and its involvement there could begin winding down as soon as this coming week, the Associated Press reported. Army General Carter Ham, the top U.S. commander for Africa, told the AP that U.S. military chiefs will likely provide NATO officials in Brussels with their assessments on Libya late in the week.

Muammar Qaddafi, the deposed Libyan leader, remains at large. The National Transitional Council, Libya’s interim government, plans to seek a two-day truce to allow civilians to depart from Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte, Reuters reported, citing the council’s chairman. Civilians have been leaving Sirte as interim government forces and NATO warplanes shell Gaddafi loyalists.

–Editors: Ann Hughey, Christian Thompson.

To contact the reporter on this story: Miles Weiss in Washington at [email protected]

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at [email protected]

via Turkey May Freeze Assad’s Assets; Libya’s Qaddafi Still at Large – Businessweek.

October 2, 2011
Turkey slams Syria over rape claim in refugee camps

By IPEK YEZDANI

McClatchy Newspapers

ISTANBUL — Turkey’s worsening relations with Syria took another hit this week over a Syrian state news report about conditions in Turkish camps housing Syrian refugees.

The report, distributed Tuesday by Syria’s SANA news agency, called the camps “centers of isolation full of rape and torture.” A woman cited in the report said she’d been raped repeatedly there and that dozens of Syrian girls also had been raped.

The camps house more than 7,500 Syrians who fled the violent crackdown on dissent by the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, called the report part of a “black propaganda” campaign that Syria is now waging against Turkey. He described developments in his country’s relations with Syria as “very, very ugly.”

Erdogan once was considered a close Assad ally, but he’s distanced himself from the Syrian president in recent weeks after Assad rebuffed Turkish calls to end the crackdown on protests, which human rights groups estimate has killed more than 2,000 people since March.

Erdogan said he no longer talked to Assad, though the countries still have diplomatic relations.

“I myself have cut my contacts with the Syrian government,” he said Tuesday in New York. “We would never like to come to this point, but unfortunately the Syrian government has made us come to a point where we had to take this kind of decision. We don’t have any trust left for the current Syrian government.”

Erdogan has been pressing ahead with a diplomatic offensive intended to project Turkey as a leader in the Middle East. Last week, he visited Cairo, where he won accolades for his recent break with Israel over Israel’s refusal to apologize for the killings of nine Turks aboard a Gaza-bound boat that Israeli special forces intercepted in May 2010.

Turkish authorities said the Syrian report on the conditions in the camps in Turkey’s Hatay district, on the Syrian border, appeared to be retaliation for their country’s increasingly hostile position toward Assad’s government.

The official Syrian report quoted a woman, identified only as Fatima, who the report said had returned recently to the village of Jisr al-Shughour in Syria, which had been the subject of a crackdown by Syrian soldiers in June.

The woman said political dissidents from Jisr al-Shughour had raped her in the camp and that they threatened to rape her daughters if she tried to return to Syria. She said a Turkish soldier also had raped her and that as many as 70 Syrian girls had been raped in the camps.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry denied the claims and said it had asked Syria to allow Turkish representatives to interview the woman. The Foreign Ministry called the report “a unique example of black propaganda, lies and evil.” The ministry said it suspected that Fatima was a fictitious person.

Erdogan said he would visit the refugee camps when he returned from New York.

“I want to see the living conditions there,” he said. He left open the possibility of further action regarding the camps “after our evaluation.”

(Yezdani is a McClatchy Newspapers special correspondent.)

via Turkey slams Syria over rape claim in refugee camps – World Wires – MiamiHerald.com.

September 22, 2011
Angry activists say Turkey handed deserted officer to Syria
Angry activists say Turkey handed deserted officer to Syria

By Ivan Watson, CNN

September 15, 2011 — Updated 1820 GMT (0220 HKT)

Activists tried to confront the Turkish Prime Minister, pictured here with Egyptian PM Essam Sharaf, while in Egpyt.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS

NEW: In his “confession,” al-Harmoush says he was not ordered to fire on civilians

Lt. Col. Hussein al-Harmoush of the Syrian army defected to Turkey

There’s no explanation from the Turkish side about his reappearance in Syria

Activists say they feel betrayed by Turkey
Istanbul (CNN) — Syrian activists are denouncing the Turkish government in the wake of the Syrian regime’s announcement that it has a deserted army officer in custody.

Lt. Col. Hussein al-Harmoush defected months ago and began broadcasting video statements denouncing the Syrian government, before eventually fleeing to neighboring Turkey.

News of his detention by Syria comes amid persistent international consternation with that country’s regime for its fierce crackdown on anti-government protesters, a six-month outpouring that has resulted in more than 2,600 deaths.

“Enough is enough,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said Thursday, urging “some coherent measures” against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Omar al-Muqdad, a prominent Syrian opposition activist who is now in exile in Turkey applying for refugee status, said the Turks handed al-Harmoush over to the Syrian secret police.

“The Turkish government is directly responsible for Harmoush’s destiny, because Harmoush was a refugee on their territory. They have to be honest about him. …under international rules, any country that receives him has to protect him,” al-Muqdad said.

Al-Harmoush had called on all Syrian soldiers to defect and mobilize against al-Assad. Eventually he fled Syria to Turkey.

Two weeks ago, al-Muqdad called CNN in a panic, saying al-Harmoush had gone missing from the refugee camp in Turkey where he’d been living. At the time, he suspected Syrian security agents had kidnapped the defecting officer.

“I talked to him on the morning of August 29th,” al-Muqdad said.

“He said ‘I have a meeting with a Turkish security man. When I finish I will call you.’ I waited for three days and didn’t hear from him. Then after that we discovered that the security man took him and didn’t send him back to the camp. They sent him to Syria directly. The Turks made a trick with Harmoush. They caught him in Turkey and sent him to Syria.”

The Syrian Arab News Agency said Syrian TV broadcast an interview or what it called a “confession from al-Harmoush” on Thursday night.

Al-Harmoush said he defected because of bloody incidents, but he was not ordered to open fire on civilians.

He said opposition members, including members of the Muslim Brotherhood, contacted him while he was in Turkey. He discussed talk of weapons and money. He said he didn’t get the kind of support he was promised. The interview didn’t indicate how he returned to Syria.

Another Syrian activist, Omar Idilbi of the Local Coordination Committees of Syria, said that from what Syrian TV is showing, there are signs that al-Harmoush has been tortured.

CNN has previously asked the Turkish Foreign Ministry about al-Harmoush, but Turkish diplomats said they were not familiar with his case.

Turkish Foreign Ministry officials were accompanying Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on a tour of Egypt, Tunisia and Libya.

One official who requested anonymity told CNN the government “on principle” never hands over people who came to Turkey on humanitarian grounds.

There are more than 7,600 Syrian refugees in six Turkish refugee camps and there is daily traffic back and forth across the borders.

In Egypt, the first stop on the Turkish delegation’s trip, Syrian activists tried to confront Erdgoan about al-Harmoush. When Erdogan emerged from the headquarters of the Arab League in Cairo on Tuesday, a crowd of angry Syrian activists stood outside the gates chanting “Erdogan coward” and “Erdogan, where is Harmoush?”

Erdogan waved to the crowd, apparently not understanding the question. But one Syrian activist cornered a senior Turkish official next to the government motorcade and demanded to know al-Harmoush’s whereabouts.

The Turkish official had no idea what he was talking about. Turkey is critical to the Syrian opposition movement. Dissidents have fled to Turkey to escape the ongoing government crackdown in Syria and have been holding opposition meetings in Turkish cities.

On Thursday, a Syrian opposition council is announcing its creation in Istanbul, the latest in a number of groups claiming to represent the opposition in Syria and abroad.

But now, with Syria announcing it has al-Harmoush in custody, opposition activists said they feel betrayed by the Turkish government.

“I can’t trust the Turks any more. They are hypocrites,” said al-Muqdad.

“There are a lot of questions that the Syrian government and the Turkish government should answer,” said Idilbi, who is based in Beirut, Lebanon.

The importance of al-Harmoush to the Syrian regime became evident September 8, when opposition activists and residents inside Syria called CNN to report Syrian security forces had attacked the village of Ibleen, where al-Harmoush’s brother Mohammed lived.

According to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a number of Syrian army defectors had taken shelter in Ibleen while awaiting the chance to smuggle themselves across the nearby border to Turkey.

Video filmed of the aftermath of the Syrian government raid showed blood-spattered houses, burned-out cars and trucks, and a ransacked home.

At least five people were killed in the raid, including al-Harmoush’s brother. His corpse was shown in another video released by opposition activists. Thousands of people attended his funeral.

Syria’s state news agency claimed responsibility for the raid on Ibleen, saying Syrian security forces had killed a number of “armed terrorists” who had been residing there.

Violence continued Thursday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said security forces killed one person and wounded five others in the Damascus countryside. A volunteer Red Crescent medic who was wounded in the western city of Homs last week has died of his injuries at a Lebanese hospital, the group said.

Last month, al-Assad told the U.N. secretary general that military operations in the country had been halted. The regime has indicated that it wanted to end the fighting and foster stability.

“These promises have been broken promises,” Ban said said Thursday.

CNN’s Yesim Comert and Tracy Doueiry contributed to this report
September 16, 2011
Syria Blocks Turkey’s Ascent

Ariel Cohen

Turkey finds its “zero-problems-with-neighbors” foreign policy severely compromised by upheavals in the Arab world. Relations with some of its closest friends, such as Syria, appear to be irrevocably damaged.

Last Tuesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu held marathon talks in Damascus. He called on President Bashar Assad and his socialist-nationalist, Alawi-minority regime to stop the bloodshed. Yet still the blood flows.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Davutoglu face a complex regional and international environment. Their nine-year investment in friendship with the Assad regime is backfiring. In 2009, Turkey and Syria signed a strategic partnership agreement, conducted joint military maneuvers and were so close that their cabinets held joint meetings. Expanding influence in what used to be the Ottoman Eastern Mediterranean province of Shams, Turkey introduced visa-free travel with Syria, Lebanon and Jordan while inundating Syria with its goods, from foodstuffs to appliances.

What a difference an Arab Spring makes. Now Turkey is flooded with over 12,000 Syrian refugees. Hundreds of thousands may flee if the Assad crackdown escalates to a civil war.

Ankara is attempting to synchronize its foreign policy with Sunni Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, which pulled their ambassadors from Damascus. Turkey is hosting Syrian opposition conferences, while Davutoglu and Erdogan are demanding that Damascus stop the killing of civilians. Syria, they say, should implement the reforms “in 10-14 days.”

Fat chance. President Assad responded to Davutoglu’s mission by saying that Syria will continue “relentlessly fighting armed groups,” the regime’s term for protesters. Assad also offended Davutoglu by sending tanks to crush protesters near the Turkish border on the day of Davutoglu’s mision, while sending “only” a deputy foreign minister, not the Turkish Minister’s counterpart, to greet him at the airport.

Much of this entanglement is Turkey’s own handiwork. It attempted to position itself as a new regional superpower, supported Hamas and abandoned a strategic relationship with Israel. Erdogan played to the Arab “street,” enthusiastically calling for Egyptian president’s Housni Mubarak’s resignation. However, today, the Sunni “street”—which is 80 percent of Syria’s population—wants the secular and minority-Alawi Assad gone, and so do the members of the Arab League.

Yet if Turkey abandons the pro-Iranian Assad, which it is in the process of doing, it will face another strategic headache: a confrontation with Tehran. Until now Turkey played a sophisticated game of rapprochement with Syria’s Shi’a patron, increasing trade and lobbying for Iran in the international arena. However, the demise of the Assad clan may open a new avenue for the Sunni Turkish Islamic AK Party, which is also close to the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest opposition force in Syria and in Egypt.

And herein lies the rub. The Middle East historically has five power centers: three Arab (Cairo, Damascus, and Baghdad) and two non-Arab: Iran and Turkey. As one of these (Damascus) undergoes a meltdown, and two others (Cairo and Baghdad) are very weak, the remaining two non-Arab centers are doomed by history and geography to compete.

Recently Turkey stopped two shipments of Iranian weapons to Hezbollah of Lebanon, which were illegal under the UN sanctions. The Iranian media are now badmouthing Ankara as a “Western agent.”

Past hugs and kisses between Erdogan and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad notwithstanding, competition between Ankara and Tehran over Damascus and Beirut is on the rise.

Ankara’s “zero-problems-with-neighbors” policy is crumbling, fast—with Syria, Cyprus, Armenia, Israel and with the Kurds.

Fasten your seatbelts, Middle East observers. It’s going to be a rocky ride.

nationalinterest.org/commentary, August 17, 2011

August 17, 2011
Syrian opposition activists meet in Istanbul to plan strategy

By Yesim Comert and Mohammed Jamjoom, CNN

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

* “This will be the seed for future civil society institutions,” the coordinator says

* A key goal is “to improve ways to deliver our message to the outside world”

* “We are building here, thinking about the future of Syria,” an organizer says

* Workshops cover evidence collecting, relief efforts, handling media

Syrian refugees sit in front of their tents on June 18 in the southern part of Turkey.

(CNN) — Approximately 200 Syrian opposition activists met Wednesday in Istanbul for the first of four planned days of workshops intended to coordinate their efforts against the Syrian regime.

“This will be the seed for future civil society institutions and movements in Syria,” said Moaz Al-Sibaai, the meeting’s general coordinator. He said the goal is “to improve ways to deliver our message to the outside world, ways of documenting human rights violations in Syria and giving coherent political messages.”

The gathering, organized by Syrian Activists Network, is taking place in a hotel on the Asian side of the city.

During the rest of the conference, the participants will attend training sessions and workshops on subjects related to human rights, media, political and strategic issues, as well as relief and coordination efforts. They will work to improve their skills in areas such as how to collect and document evidence, how to deal with the news media, how to build effective work teams and how to provide relief for displaced people.

On Wednesday, the attendees consisted mostly of young adults, some of them from Syria. At the venue, their general mood was enthusiastic, with many expressing optimism they will achieve their goals.

One young female activist, who comes from a long line of Syrian dissidents, said she was thankful for the opportunities presented at the gathering. “I want to attend the media course, I might attend the charity one, but I would be more than happy to join any of them,” she said.

Syrian opposition groups have held a number of meetings in Turkey in recent months. The last one, organized by the Syrian National Salvation Council, took place mid-July in Istanbul. Participants elected a 25-member council in a show of unity behind their intention to oust the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

“It is not about toppling the regime, we are past that,” said Sima Abedraboh, an organizer and participant at Wednesday’s event. “We are building here, thinking about the future of Syria.”

She predicted this week’s sessions would mark the first of what will become a series of such courses for Syrian activists.

Syria has been wracked by violent government crackdowns on protests across the country since mid-March, when teens were arrested for writing anti-government graffiti in the southern city of Daraa. As the clashes intensified, demonstrators changed their demands, from calls for freedom and an end to abuses by the security forces to calls for the regime’s overthrow.

World powers have criticized the crackdown by al-Assad’s government. The U.S. State Department this week said al-Assad is the “cause” of the country’s “instability” and is not “the key to its stability.”

Comert is reporting from Istanbul; Jamjoom is reporting from Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

via Syrian opposition activists meet in Istanbul to plan strategy – CNN.com.

July 29, 2011