http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=1&id=32620
Syrian FM calls on rebels to disarm and negotiate
20/01/2013
Guevara, a Syrian Palestinian woman married to an Al Wa'ad battalion
commander, is pictured in Aleppo January 19, 2013. (R)
A Free Syrian Army fighter enters a house at a frontline in Arabeen
neighborhood of Damascus January 19, 2013. (R)
Rebel sniper takes aim at a target in the city of Aleppo on January 18,
2013.(AFP)
BEIRUT (AP) — Syria's foreign minister invited the country's rebels on Saturday
to lay down their weapons and take part in a national dialogue, saying everyone
who participates will be included in a new Cabinet with wide executive powers.
Walid al-Moallem said in a live interview on state TV late Saturday that any
opposition parties could join the Cabinet as long as they reject foreign
intervention in Syria. The Syrian government has started contacting
"representatives of the Syrian people," he added.
Earlier this month, President Bashar Assad dismissed calls that he step down,
vowing to keep fighting the rebels. Assad also proposed a national
reconciliation conference, elections and a new constitution — concessions
offered previously over the course of the uprising that began in March 2011.
The opposition says that Assad can play no role in a resolution to the conflict.
"I tell the young men who carried arms to change and reform, take part in the
dialogue for a new Syria and you will be a partner in building it. Why carry
arms," al-Moallem said in the hour-long interview. "Those who want foreign
intervention will not be among us."
He accused Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey of arming and financing the rebels in
Syria. He said that Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaida-linked group which the U.S.
has declared a terrorist organization but which fights alongside Syrian rebels,
had brought fighters from 27 countries to fight in Syria.
Last month, the international envoy tasked with Syria's crisis, Lakhdar
Brahimi, proposed a plan to end Syria's war with a cease-fire followed by the
formation of a transitional government to run the country until new elections
can be held.
Brahimi did not mention Assad by name, but said the transitional government
would have "full executive powers" and would replace the Syrian leader. The
plan was unveiled by world powers at an international conference in Geneva in
June. Al-Moallem said that the Geneva conference does not require Assad to
leave power.
The interview came as activists reported violence in different areas of Syria.
In the northern province of Idlib, Syrian troops fought intense battles
Saturday against rebels who are trying to capture two military bases in the
northwest and step up their attacks on army compounds elsewhere in the country,
activists said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local
Coordination Committees said the rebels destroyed at least one tank near the
town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province. The rebels, who have been battling
for weeks to take control of bases in Wadi Deif and Hamdiyeh, are working to
cut off supply routes to the compounds, the Observatory said.
Attacks on government bases are a recent focus of fighting in Syria's civil
war, which according to the United Nations has left more than 60,000 people
dead since the conflict began in March 2011.
Last week, rebels captured the nearby air base of Taftanaz in a significant
blow to President Bashar Assad's forces, who increasingly rely on airpower.
The rebels also have been trying to capture other air bases in the northern
province of Aleppo, and, according to activists, were attacking the air base of
Mannagh near the Turkish border.
In Turkey, state-run Anadolu news agency said Syria's air force targeted a
mosque and a school building that was apparently sheltering displaced Syrians
in the town of Salqin, some four miles (six kilometers) from the border with
Turkey in Idlib province. Dozens of people were killed and wounded.
At least 30 people wounded in the attack were taken across the border to Turkey
for treatment, and two died in Turkish hospitals, the news agency said.
The displaced Syrians were eating when the school was attacked, according to
Anadolu, who interviewed witnesses who has crossed into the Turkish border
province of Hatay. The wounded included women and children, the agency said.
Syria's official news agency SANA said troops had targeted rebel hideouts in
Salqin, killing and wounding some of them.
Also in Turkey on Saturday, members of the newly-restructured Syrian opposition
held a conference in Istanbul aiming to nominate representatives for a
transitional government.
"We have some ideas, some proposals," said one opposition member, Abdul Ahad
Astephoa, without mentioning any specifics.
The group, known as the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and
Opposition Forces, was formed in Qatar in November amid international pressure
to unite factions within the opposition.
Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Observatory, said the government was sending
reinforcements to the central city of Homs where rebels have controlled some
neighborhoods for more than a year. Residents of Homs, Syria's third largest
city, were one of the first to rise up against Assad and many refer to it as
"the capital of the revolution."
"It seems they are preparing for a big attack on Homs," Abdul-Rahman said by
telephone.
The Observatory and the LCC said troops attacked several suburbs of the
capital, Damascus, as well as Homs and the southern rebel-held town of Busra
al-Harir. The shelling and air raids targeted the Damascus suburbs of Douma,
Daraya and Moadamiyeh where regime forces have been on the offensive for weeks,
they said
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