TURKEY: British Foreign Secretary William Hague meets SNC opposition leaders in Istanbul saying Syria on the brink of catastrophe

Record ID: 280826

  • Title: TURKEY: British Foreign Secretary William Hague meets SNC opposition leaders in Istanbul saying Syria on the brink of catastrophe
  • Date: 2nd June 2012
  • Summary: ISTANBUL, TURKEY (JUNE 1, 2012) (REUTERS) SYRIAN NATIONAL COUNCIL (SNC) DELEGATION ARRIVING FOR MEETING BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY WILLIAM HAGUE AND SNC MEMBERS SHAKING HANDS AND SITTING DOWN HAGUE AND SNC MEMBER FARUK TAYFUR TALKING TAYFUR AND SNC MEMBER MUTI AL BUTAIN SEATED (SOUNDBITE) (English) BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY WILLIAM HAGUE SAYING: "Well I have met here
  • Embargoed: 17th June 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Turkey
  • Country: Turkey
  • Topics: Conflict,International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA8XC4X004EJFICZG9LZH7OFEZR
  • Story Text: British Foreign Secretary William Hague met executive committee members of the Syrian opposition's Syrian National Council (SNC) on Friday (June 1) in Istanbul.
    Hague said Syria is on the edge of a catastrophe.
    "Well I have met here in Istanbul the Syrian National Council representatives and also other opposition groups in Syria and I have also had a good discussion about the terrible situation in Syria with the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon and I think the secretary general, I and the opposition in Syria think that Syria is on the edge of a catastrophic situation if we can imagine one even worse than the current situation," said Hague.
    "We are supporting very strongly the U.N. process led by Kofi Annan, backed by the U.N. Secretary General and all the Security Council members support that process. If it fails in the coming weeks that we will need to turn to the Security Council. We don't know how the situation in Syria will develop so I do not think we can rule anything out in the coming months," Hague said.
    Member of the SNC delegation which met Hague, Faruk Tayfur said both Syria opposition and Hague agreed that the massacre last weekend in the Syrian town of Houla was carried out by Syrian government forces with the aim of destroying special U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's peace plan for Syria.
    "We and British Foreign Secretary discussed about the Annan plan. And we both agreed that the massacre in Houla and others had been done by Assad regime to destroy the Annan plan. We asked support from them, western countries and European countries to put more serious and strong sanctions over Syria" said Tayfur.
    The United Nations says Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces have killed more than 9,000 people since the start of the uprising.
    Syria blames Islamist militants for the violence and says 2,600 soldiers and police have been killed.
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