Syria’s main opposition SNC to restructure

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Syria’s main opposition bloc will restructure itself in Qatar next week to seek fresh impetus, Syrian National Council leader Abdulbaset Sieda said on Wednesday, after months of criticism that it is too fractious and influenced by Islamists.

Sieda, speaking in Paris, also said the SNC reorganization would precede crunch talks in the Qatari capital Doha with other opponents of President Bashar al-Assad aimed at creating a Syrian transitional government.

Western and Arab countries that have called for Assad’s removal are keen to improve cooperation among those trying to dislodge him, including the Istanbul-based SNC.

But the mainly-exiled political groups within the SNC have often been at odds with each other, and have not always agreed with rebel fighters or other political opposition movements operating within Syria, such as the Free Syrian Army, led by defected military officers.

“We want to create this government as quickly as possible, but speed doesn’t mean rushing it,” Sieda told reporters after being questioned by members of the French parliament.

“There is an urgency, but if we don’t consult properly with the principle opposition forces on the ground, then we will have a weak government that we don’t want.”

The SNC was formed in Istanbul last year as an umbrella organization to guide a democratic transition if Assad fell, but has been accused by some of being dominated by Islamists.

The disparate opposition to Assad includes majority Arabs and minority Kurds, majority Sunni Muslims and members of minority sects, Islamists and secularists, political exiles and those who have stayed behind or returned to fight.

Sieda, who is due to resign from his position next week, said the first step would be a general assembly of the Syrian National Council in Doha from October 15-17 to elect a new leadership and increase the numbers of women and young members.

It will also incorporate some 20 new groups into the organization, including local coordination committees, business groups and smaller Kurdish, Turkmen and Syriac Christian representatives.

Sieda, who described himself as secular, reiterated that the SNC favors a secular, democratic Syria that respects minority rights and where power is to given local authorities, away from the centre in Damascus.

The mild-mannered professor, who is of Kurdish-Syrian origin and has lived in Sweden for the last 18 years, said that following the SNC re-organization, “key” strands of the opposition would meet in Doha aiming to reach an agreement to move towards the creation of a provisional government.

Among those groups would be local co-ordinating committees, as well as revolutionary and military councils.

France, the first country to describe the SNC as a legitimate interlocutor, has said it will recognize an all-inclusive provisional government as soon as it is in place.

Sieda this week travelled for the first time to northern Syria, where he met internal groups, but he admitted there were still obstacles to uniting the opposition.

“The obstacles exist, but they aren’t big. At times it’s difficult to agree exactly on how to bring together the points of view,” he said. “But we agree that this regime has to end. We think we can get over our differences.”

Sieda added the SNC wanted to move its operations to the so-called “liberated zones” in the north, but that it would be very difficult until those areas were protected from bombardment.

Reuters

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22 responses to “Syria’s main opposition SNC to restructure”

  1. wargame1 Avatar

    One more murder by Bashar Al-Qaeda revealed :
    Prominent Syrian Kurdish politician and activist Mashaal Tammo was murdered on Oct. 7, 2011 with direct orders from President Bashar al-Assad, leaked files aired by Al Arabiya on Wednesday revealed.

    Four gunmen broke into the home of Tammo, a vocal critic of President Assad, in the eastern city of Qamishli, killing him and wounding his son Marcel and a fellow activist in the liberal Kurdish Future Movement Party, which Tammou had founded in 2005. 

    1. $31060015 Avatar

      Al Arabiya aired this. Then it must defiantly mean its true. Al Arabiya would never lie. Wake up to yourself clown 

      1. haha

  2. wargame1 Avatar

    One more murder by Bashar Al-Qaeda revealed :
    Prominent Syrian Kurdish politician and activist Mashaal Tammo was murdered on Oct. 7, 2011 with direct orders from President Bashar al-Assad, leaked files aired by Al Arabiya on Wednesday revealed.

    Four gunmen broke into the home of Tammo, a vocal critic of President Assad, in the eastern city of Qamishli, killing him and wounding his son Marcel and a fellow activist in the liberal Kurdish Future Movement Party, which Tammou had founded in 2005. 

    1. Al Arabiya aired this. Then it must defiantly mean its true. Al Arabiya would never lie. Wake up to yourself clown 

      1. haha

  3. 5thDrawer Avatar

    From A BBC article:

    ‘Although Syria’s revolutionaries took inspiration from their counterparts in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, their situation is unique in the Arab world, argues Fouad Ajami. (Born in Lebanon) He sees vivid parallels, though, with the Spanish civil war.’

    “Analogies are never perfect, but as I have tracked this rebellion, and read and reflected on it, thoughts of the Spanish civil war have come to mind. The rancid hatred and mercilessness that separates the warring camps in Syria is evocative of that quality of hatred that played out in Spain. Franco had been a tedious, colourless man, but the cruelty was relentless. No Syrian Picasso has yet given Aleppo, bombed by the regime’s aircraft, the fame of Guernica, but Guernica was a town of 7,000 people, while Aleppo is a large metropolis, Syria’s largest, a city with a fabled history of travel and commerce.”

    “Ours is a different world today. Romantics and communists were drawn to Spain – the Lincoln Brigade, men and women who saw the cause of freedom hanging in the balance in that war. We have no such brigades now. True, some Sunni Islamists, Libyans and others, have made their way to Syria. But they are a trickle, and the Syrians fight alone. They invoke Allah more often than they did at the beginning of their struggle – which is perhaps an accurate reading of their solitude in the world of nations.”

    1. great examples of democracy in the arabisch (a rubbish) spring, fsa and this blog, oops and you; in misrata they hanged a 7 year old girl yesterday accused of supporting kazzafi; lol; actually sad but i bet you enjoy it

      1. 5thDrawer Avatar

        And the Taliban shot a 10-yr old girl in Pakistan with more fame for speaking out about her desires of having an education.
        A girl more brave than ALL the idiots who wanted to silence her.
        But those lower-bred types of people are NOT the majority. The majority will only continue to suffer from the thinking of those who would silence freedom of thought if they are not opening their mouths as those girls do, even unto death, and stating their desires for that kind of freedom.
        It is a freedom of the mind they seek, even if they don’t know it. ‘Big Brother’ in the book ‘1984’ only succeeded by the kind of fear put into the people by a system much like the Taliban and such-like use. Those who want no part of that WILL speak up, and we see that only in democratic countries are they allowed to do that without the cowering and fear instilled by ‘leaders’ of the ‘cults of ignorance’.

        1. Mahdi Kenaani Avatar
          Mahdi Kenaani

          Taliban is created by IsraHELL so of course they are doing stuff like this. Why does it surpirse you?

        2. 5thDrawer Avatar

          What surprises me Mahdi, is that you think only Jewish people are capable of it.

        3. Mahdi Kenaani Avatar
          Mahdi Kenaani

          well maybe i am full of surprises 

    2. Hannibal Avatar

      Until such time where the rebels delineate their post-Assad plan including their attitude towards minorities and Israel they will find themselves fighting alone. They need to make it clear that their revolution is gonna stop at the Golan Heights and not at Jerusalem’s gates. Otherwise the Americans are not coming to their rescue specially that there is a big gamble as to how Russia and China may react towards this involvement. 

  4. 5thDrawer Avatar

    From A BBC article:

    ‘Although Syria’s revolutionaries took inspiration from their counterparts in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, their situation is unique in the Arab world, argues Fouad Ajami. (Born in Lebanon) He sees vivid parallels, though, with the Spanish civil war.’

    “Analogies are never perfect, but as I have tracked this rebellion, and read and reflected on it, thoughts of the Spanish civil war have come to mind. The rancid hatred and mercilessness that separates the warring camps in Syria is evocative of that quality of hatred that played out in Spain. Franco had been a tedious, colourless man, but the cruelty was relentless. No Syrian Picasso has yet given Aleppo, bombed by the regime’s aircraft, the fame of Guernica, but Guernica was a town of 7,000 people, while Aleppo is a large metropolis, Syria’s largest, a city with a fabled history of travel and commerce.”

    “Ours is a different world today. Romantics and communists were drawn to Spain – the Lincoln Brigade, men and women who saw the cause of freedom hanging in the balance in that war. We have no such brigades now. True, some Sunni Islamists, Libyans and others, have made their way to Syria. But they are a trickle, and the Syrians fight alone. They invoke Allah more often than they did at the beginning of their struggle – which is perhaps an accurate reading of their solitude in the world of nations.”

    1. great examples of democracy in the arabisch (a rubbish) spring, fsa and this blog, oops and you; in misrata they hanged a 7 year old girl yesterday accused of supporting kazzafi; lol; actually sad but i bet you enjoy it

      1. 5thDrawer Avatar

        And the Taliban shot a 10-yr old girl in Pakistan with more fame for speaking out about her desires of having an education.
        A girl more brave than ALL the idiots who wanted to silence her.
        But those lower-bred types of people are NOT the majority. The majority will only continue to suffer from the thinking of those who would silence freedom of thought if they are not opening their mouths as those girls do, even unto death, and stating their desires for that kind of freedom.
        It is a freedom of the mind they seek, even if they don’t know it. ‘Big Brother’ in the book ‘1984’ only succeeded by the kind of fear put into the people by a system much like the Taliban and such-like use. Those who want no part of that WILL speak up, and we see that only in democratic countries are they allowed to do that without the cowering and fear instilled by ‘leaders’ of the ‘cults of ignorance’.

        1. Mahdi Kenaani Avatar
          Mahdi Kenaani

          Taliban is created by IsraHELL so of course they are doing stuff like this. Why does it surpirse you?

        2. 5thDrawer Avatar

          What surprises me Mahdi, is that you think only Jewish people are capable of it.

        3. Mahdi Kenaani Avatar
          Mahdi Kenaani

          well maybe i am full of surprises 

    2. Hannibal Avatar

      Until such time where the rebels delineate their post-Assad plan including their attitude towards minorities and Israel they will find themselves fighting alone. They need to make it clear that their revolution is gonna stop at the Golan Heights and not at Jerusalem’s gates. Otherwise the Americans are not coming to their rescue specially that there is a big gamble as to how Russia and China may react towards this involvement. 

  5. how many restructures????

  6. how many restructures????

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