|
|
|
| Well informed sources in the Russian foreign affairs confirmed the
information that the Syrian opposition is ready to go into negotiations with the
Syrian government without preconditions that President Assad should not be part
of the process. The Russian sources say that opposition is displaying a more
realistic approach after the recent achievements of the governments on both
military and political levels. |
US PLEDGES $60M TO SNC-FSA IN FINAL BID TO FORCE THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD ON THE SYRIAN PEOPLE
The US will provide the Syrian opposition with $60 million in aid, Secretary
of State John Kerry announced on Thursday. The non-lethal assistance will
include the delivery of food and medical supplies directly to the rebels for the
first time.
“No nation, no people should live in fear of their so-called leaders,”
Kerry said in a speech after attending a ‘Friends of Syria’ meeting in Rome.
The move aims to increase pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad to step
down, and pave the way for a democratic transition, Kerry said, adding that the
aid is intended to help the opposition govern newly liberated areas of
Syria.
“For more than a year, the United States and our partners have called on
Assad to heed the voice of the Syrian people and to halt his war machine,”
Kerry said. “Instead, what we have seen is his brutality increase.”
But despite the ‘brutality’ comment, Kerry said that Washington will not
provide weapons to opposition fighters. The news may be seen as a disappointing
blow to anti-Assad forces, who have called for Western arms.
The decision to provide aid directly to the Syrian rebels represents a policy
change within the Obama administration. Until now, the US has never directly
delivered assistance to opposition fighters. “Given the stakes, the president
will now extend food and medical supplies to the Syrian opposition, including
the Supreme Military Council,” Kerry said.
US officials said the rations and medical supplies are to be distributed only
to members of the Free Syrian Army; the aid will be delivered to the rebels
through their military council.
Washington will also send technical advisers to the Syrian National Coalition
offices in Cairo to oversee the aid distribution. The advisers will be from
non-governmental organizations and other non-profit groups.
The US has already provided $385 million in humanitarian aid to Syrian
civilians and $54 million in communications equipment, medical supplies, and
other non-lethal assistance to the political opposition.
Syrian opposition leader Moaz Khatib also took to the podium after the
meeting, pleading directly to Assad to step down.
“Bashar Assad, you have to behave as a human being for once in your
life,” Khatib said. “Enough killing, enough slaughtering, enough
arresting. Bashar, you need to make one reasonable [act] in your life time to
save this country.”
“The regime has to go. We need to dismantle all the security
apparatus,” Khatib said, adding that the Syrian government should be forced
to establish humanitarian corridors to allow aid to reach the areas hardest hit
by violence.
In a final statement after the Rome meeting, the Friends of Syria deplored
the “unabated” arms supply to Assad, likely referring to Russia and Iran,
countries viewed as Assad’s traditional allies.
The Thursday Friends of Syria meeting almost failed to materialize: Earlier
this week, the Syrian opposition voiced frustration over the “shameful”
failure of the international community to put an end to the country’s civil war
by refusing to attend the talks.
The leaders finally agreed to attend, after Kerry and his British counterpart
William Hague insisted the talks would discuss concrete steps forward.
Meanwhile, the European Union has amended sanctions on Syria to permit the
supply of armored vehicles, non-lethal military equipment, and technical aid to
the opposition, provided they are intended to protect civilians.
The new sanctions exempt “non-lethal military equipment or…equipment which
might be used for internal repression,” and “non-combat vehicles…fitting
with materials to provide ballistic protection.”
The decision comes after weeks of negotiations between EU states regarding
the arms embargo on Syria. Some member nations were in favor of easing the
embargo to help rebels, while others worried that allowing more arms into Syria
could fuel the violence.
According to UN estimates, more than 70,000 Syrians have been killed in the
nearly two-year-long uprising against President Assad. Some 860,000 Syrians have
fled abroad, and several million others have been displaced within the
country.
$60 million Syrian opposition aid attempt to ‘make it popular among the
civilian population’
The US has for the first time provided direct aid to the rebel fighters in
Syria. John Laughland, from the Institute of Democracy and Cooperation, believes
the move is an attempt to prop up a movement that has failed to take root among
the Syrian people.
RT: The US is promising direct steps in aiding the rebels… Is this
what the opposition wants? Is this help direct enough?
John Laughland: No they want arms, they want even more help.
Nonetheless, it is a very significant intervention – $60 million should not be
sneezed at, and what the Americans are trying to do is to prop us a project that
so far has failed. If we look back to 2011, when Hilary Clinton was calling for
the overthrow of Assad, they expected the regime in Syria to fall very quickly,
and that hasn’t happened. However great the rebels’ gains may have been, the
regime is still fighting back and it shows no signs of collapsing. Instead, it
is the opposition that is fractured. Famously, the Syrian national Council is a
ragbag of different interests, and one of the people speaking to John Kerry,
Moaz al-Khatib, has of course called for direct negotiations with the Syrian
government. So, the opposition is breaking up, and there are plenty of forces in
the opposition, at least according to my sources in the region, who are bitterly
disappointed with the West.
Rebels
pray inside a cave in the village of Kfarruma in the flashpoint Syrian province
of Idlib near the border with Turkey, on February 10, 2013. (AFP Photo/Daniel
Leal-Olivas)
RT: Do you think that Washington isn’t offering more direct help
because the opposition is divided?
JL: I think it’s a very significant development, because after all the
ordinary Syrian population is suffering very greatly from this opposition, from
this so-called liberation. These paramilitary groups cannot provide any basic
services, they are not the state. They don’t run hospitals, they don’t run the
police, they don’t run the water supply and so on. People are fleeing from the
areas where these rebels are located. So as I say, this is an attempt to prop an
opposition which is failing on its own terms. It’s an attempt to make it popular
among the civilian population. And I am sure that many Syrians who watched the
meeting in Rome, and who have seen al-Khatib and many others hobnobbing with
John Kerry will draw the conclusion that the opposition is a Western puppet, and
that will surely not be good for its image back home in Syria.
RT: Will this aid actually help the rebels win the war?
JL: I don’t know. I think that on paper, it is intended to make them
more popular with the civilian population. We all know that arms can get to
rebels and indeed are getting to rebels through indirect means, and that they
are being funnelled there by American allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia. So,
whether the United States itself is sending them is actually neither here nor
there.
Syrian
rebels gather under a bridge during shelling by regime forces in the
northwestern Syrian town of Jisr al-Shughur on January 25, 2013. (AFP Photo)
Ultimately, I do not think that a lack of weapons is their problem. Their
problem is their lack of political consistency, the fact that they’ve made them
unpopular in Syria itself, and that after all they are not a state, but a rebel
group and that they can’t provide living conditions for the people who have come
under their power.
In Strange Paradox, Kerry to Back Armed Groups and Speed Up political
process
Feb 28, 2013
PARIS,(SANA)- In a strange paradox, US Secretary
of State, John Kerry on Thursday expressed Washington’s desire to find means to
speed up the political process which aims at ending the crisis in Syria, and its
desire to help and back the armed terrorist groups in the country.
During a press conference with
his French counterpart in Paris , Kerry said “The Syrian opposition is in need
for more aids to reach areas inside Syria”, yet he didn’t specify the type of
aid his country wants to provide after he said in London that Washington seeks
to exert pressure on the Syrian Government to change what he called” its
calculations on the ground”.
Kerry claimed that “Washington wants to provide consultation to
the Syrian opposition on ways of stepping up a political dialogue that would be
the best way of stopping the bloodshed and of protecting the interests of the
Syrians.”
At the same time, American media sources said that the USA is
planning to send military vehicles and armors to the armed groups in Syria and
to provide the military training to them.
He added that this requires changing what he called “the
current calculations of President Bashar al-Assad”, adding “We are in need for
convincing him of this, and I think that the opposition is in need for more help
to be able to achieve this issue.”
Kerry neglected any stance that helps the political dialogue,
and he only promised to back the armed groups in a way that encourages them to
continue their criminal acts of killing, terrifying the innocent citizens, and
destroying the governmental institutions.
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!
Monday, February 25, 2013 at 9:53AM
his eminence appeared on Wednesday on al-Manar TV to
refute rumors over his health condition, Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed
Hasan Nasrallah warned that there have been sides who seek sectarian sedition in
Lebanon.
