Syrians Say ’Yes’ to New Constitution, President Assad Approves It - “Qatar in Favor of Delivering Arms to Syrian Opposition”

Syrians Say ’Yes’ to New Constitution, President Assad Approves It

Local Editor

Syrian President Bashar Assad endorsed on Tuesday the new constitution which has been supported by Syrians during Sunday referendum. Assad issued a decree in which the new constitution came into effecet since February 27, official news Agency reported. On Mondaythe results of the referendum were announced, with high percent of the voters said yes to the new constitution. Al-Shaar during press conference on Monday 89.4% of the 57.4% who vote on Sunday referendum agreed to the constitution, Interior Ministry announced. In a press conference, Minister of Interior Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ibrahim al-Shaar said that that 8,376,447 citizens voted in the referendum on the new draft constitution, which constitutes 57.4% of the 14,589,954 eligible voters, with 7,490,319 (89.4% of voters) agreeing to it while 753,208 (9% of voters) didn't agree. He said that there were 132,920 invalid ballots, which makes up 1.6% of votes. Al-Shaar hailed the turnout as good “despite the threats and intimidation by armed terrorist groups in some areas and the accompanying distortion and instigation campaigns by media”, official news agency, SANA, quoted him as saying. The announcement of the results came just after the European Union adopted sanctions on Syria’s central bank and froze the assets of several Syrian government officials. The foreign ministers of the 27 EU countries, in a meeting in Brussels on Monday, also banned the purchase of gold, precious metals and diamonds from the country, and banned Syrian cargo flights from the European Union.

Source: Agencies

“Qatar in Favor of Delivering Arms to Syrian Opposition”

Local Editor

Qatar's prime minister said Monday he was in favor of delivering arms to the Syrian opposition that is battling President Bashar al-Assad's regime and attacking innocent civilians across the country. "We should do whatever necessary to help them, including giving them weapons to defend themselves," Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al-Thani said during an official visit to Norway. "This uprising in Syria now (has lasted) one year. For 10 months, it was peaceful: nobody was carrying weapons, nobody was doing anything. And Bashar continued killing them," he pretended during a news conference. "So I think they're right to defend themselves by weapons and I think we should help these people by all means," he added. Hundreds of peaceful Syrian citizens have been killed in violence across Syria since armed gangs erupted protests in March 2011. The Qatari prime minister also reiterated that his country was in favor of sending an international peacekeeping force to Syria, with an Arab "core". "We need (an international) coalition, but the core of the coalition should be an Arab force," maybe referring to the Peninsula Shield that entered Bahraini territories in March 2011 and brutally killed dozens of peaceful Bahraini protests demanding freedom and social justice. At the beginning of the month, Russia and China blocked a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning the Syrian regime's crackdown. Last week in Tunisia, a "Friends of Syria" international conference, in which Moscow and Beijing refused to take part, discussed several ways to help opponents of Assad's regime but put off a decision on sending a joint Arab League-UN peacekeeping force.

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