TURKEY: Syrain opposition members in exile form the 'National Salvation Council' to represent Syrians living abroad.

Record ID: 279582

  • Title: TURKEY: Syrain opposition members in exile form the 'National Salvation Council' to represent Syrians living abroad.
  • Date: 17th July 2011
  • Summary: DELEGATES LISTENING TO SYRIAN NATIONAL ANTHEM
  • Embargoed: 1st August 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Turkey, Turkey
  • Country: Turkey
  • Topics: International Relations,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA5Q4HQM4URFBC3H43V5DIGFK8H
  • Story Text: Syrian dissidents established a council for Syrians living outside the country on Saturday (July 16) at the end of "National Salvation Congress" which was held in Istanbul.
    The conference was supposed to run simultaneously to the one which was due to be held in Syria.
    However the latest killings prompted the opposition to cancel the conference that was due in the Qaboun neighbourhood of Damascus on Saturday after security forces killed 14 protesters in front of the wedding hall where the conference was scheduled to take place.
    The opposition, divided between Islamists and liberals, held the congress to try to unite behind the goal of ending 41 years of Assad family rule, but they failed to agree on forming a shadow government.
    Several hundred opponents of President Bashar al-Assad gathered at a hotel in a distant seaside suburb of Istanbul to plot the course of the revolution back home, marking the latest in a series of meetings held by the opposition in Turkey.
    The dissidents at the meeting appeared to fall into two camps -- Islamist and secular liberals. Splits seemed to open among them over whether to form a government-in-waiting or wait to see how the uprising unfolds, and they could opt form a united body without presuming a leadership role. At the end of the conference, they managed to established a council which would represent Syrian dissidents in exile.
    "We give our people our view (of the) future for Syria to change, to finish this regime, Bashar Assad and his family and change the regime and to have good future, democracy, freedoms and human rights," President of the conference Haitham Maleh said.
    A venerable former judge who was among political prisoners released by Assad in March when the uprising began, Haitham Maleh said Syrian President should step down to stop the violence.
    "If he want really stop bloodshed, he has to leave the country, he has to leave power," he said.
    Most of the participants have lived in exile for years, if not decades, and many have paid a heavy price for their dissent in previous crackdowns by the ruling Baath Party. Unlike other meetings in recent months in Turkey, some members of the opposition inside Syria managed to attend.
    Assad's promises of reform have failed to quell the protests. Rights groups say some 1,400 civilians have been killed in the crackdown.
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