Syrian League relegation as opposition in Moscow

Syrian League relegation as opposition in Moscow

As the pressure piles on the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, Syrian opposition leaders are heading to Moscow for talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

­Earlier this week Russia has lambasted an Arab League's decision to expel Syria, and is accusing NATO countries of inciting violence there.

The League voted for suspension and sanctions at the weekend, triggering anti-League mass protests in the country, mainly in Damascus, where the embassy of Turkey was stormed, while embassies of Saudi Arabia and Qatar were also attacked, with police managing to stop the protestors. Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid Muallem has officially apologized for attacks made on November 12-13.

Interestingly enough, the same move was made towards Libya shortly before NATO started to bomb it into the Stone Age with the help of the countries of the Persian Gulf.

The Syrian opposition is coming to Moscow to persuade Russia to become a mediator and put an end to the ongoing conflict in Syria. The delegation expects to “open a new chapter in Russia-Syria relations” and wants to become the one to achieve that.

The Russian side is to appeal to opposition leaders to bring an end to the violence, asking them to put the people of Syria ahead of any kind of campaign of regime change, meaning attempts to topple President Bashar Assad.

For the last nine months it has been the people of Syria that suffered the most because of the violence, as 3,500 people – including army servicemen and police reinforcements – are estimated to have lost their lives amid the unrest.

Russia demands an end to the conflict, and the sooner the better. Hence the meeting with the Syrian opposition today in Moscow, which is parallel with constant contact with the Syrian government in Damascus.

Russian FM Sergey Lavrov has expressed Russia’s dismay at the decision to expel Syria from the League of the Arab States. He suggests that the shadowy hand of Western governments that want to see an escalation of violence and change of the regime in Damascus was behind the decision of the Arab League to strip Syria of its membership.

Syria's Arab League membership expires on Wednesday at an emergency meeting of the League, when the Arab leaders will officially turn their backs on their neighbor.

The first of the Arab leaders to call to President Bashar Assad to go was Abdullah II, King of Jordan. He said that if he were in the same position as president of Syria, he would be stepping down.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar voted in favor of expelling Syria from the Arab League.

Russia is using everything within its power to prevent the Libyan scenario from repeating in Syria and will evidently block any UN resolutions on Syria, so that nobody could later use a UN mandate as a pretext for military intervention in Syria.

04:20 15/11/2011ALL NEWS

Lavrov to meet in Moscow Syria opposition delegation

http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c154/271918.html

MOSCOW, November 15 (Itar-Tass) — Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday will meet a delegation of the Syrian National Council (SNC). The visit to Moscow of the opposition led by the SNC Chairman Burhan Ghalioun is held against the backdrop of the unprecedented pressure the international community has exerted on this Arab republic in recent days.

On the eve of negotiations Lavrov said that “Russia is trying to bring to reason the Syrian opposition.” “We will try to convey to them our concern, because the struggle for power is a thing that often becomes an end in itself, but it is necessary to think about your own country the people,” he said.

The ultimatum of the League of Arab States (LAS) with the deadline on November 16 contains the threat of suspension of Damascus’ membership in the organisation, curtailing political contacts and imposing economic sanctions. The League motivates such a tough approach by the Syrian president’s failure to fulfil the peace plan in the country.

The Russian minister said the decision to suspend the membership of Syria in the Arab League is “wrong” and recalled that the Syrians have invited LAS observers to visit the country. “Those who made this decision have lost a very important opportunity to make the situation more transparent,” Lavrov said.

“We have given some good advice as friends, that these reforms should be accelerated,” he recalled. “Bashar al-Assad has adopted a number of important laws, really set up a committee that deals with reforming the constitution, including ending the monopoly of the Ba’ath Party. It is very difficult to brush aside this.” “Both the opposition and our European and American counterparts just openly made politicised statements that he does not do anything at all,” the minister continued. “That’s not true. However, unfortunately, the Syrian leadership has also made many mistakes. One of them is the reluctance to open the country to any media.”

The EU, for its part, imposed new sanctions on Damascus, and French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe even urged to find the means “to protect the civilian population of Syria.” It turns out that Moscow has drawn parallels with Libya not without a reason.

“When these people (opposition) hear tough statements from Washington and Brussels that it is impossible to hold any kind of dialogue with Assad and he should understand that he must go, this, certainly, does not encourage a constructive dialogue,” said Lavrov, adding that “there is incitement of radically minded oppositionists to adhere to the course towards the regime change and refuse from all invitations to dialogue.”

Representative of the Committee in support of the Syrian Revolution, Dr. Mahmoud Hamo Al-Hamza said that the talks in Moscow “will focus on the Russian-Syrian relations.” “We want to preserve relations with Russia,” he said in an interview with Itar-Tass. “The main thing is that Russia supports the Syrian people.”

In addition to the consultations at the RF Foreign Ministry, the emissaries plan meetings with the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the State Duma lower house of parliament Konstantin Kosachev and Vice Speaker of the Federation Council upper house Ilyas Umakhanov.

The 2011 Syrian uprising is an ongoing internal conflict occurring in Syria. Protests started on 26 January 2011, and escalated into an uprising by 15 March 2011. The uprising is influenced by concurrent protests in the region, and has been described as “unprecedented.” The demands of protesters include for President Bashar al-Assad to step down, for the ruling Ba’ath Party to allow other political parties, equal rights for Kurdish people and broad political freedoms, such as freedom of press, speech and assembly.

As protests continued, the Syrian government used tanks and snipers to force people off the streets. Water and electricity were shut off and security forces began confiscating flour and food in particularly restive areas, including Daraa, Douma and Homs. During the course of the uprising, the Syrian Army has stormed the cities of Daraa, Douma, Baniyas, Hama, Homs, Talkalakh, Rastan, Jisr ash-Shughur, Deir ez-Zor and Latakia, among other towns, and occupied parts of Damascus. The violence escalated as the crisis wore on, with the killing reaching its highest level in early August. Activists, fleeing civilians, and soldiers who defected claimed that soldiers who refuse to fire on civilians are executed by the Syrian Army. The Syrian government has denied the reports of defections and blames “armed gangs” for causing trouble.

More than 3,500 people have been killed, many more injured, and thousands of protesters have been detained. Dozens of detainees have reportedly been tortured and killed. Syrian officials say a captured terrorist has confessed to receiving foreign aid and instructions from contacts in Saudi Arabia and Jordan to deface Damascus.

Since the beginning of the uprising, the Syrian government has made several concessions, though widely considered trivial by protesters demanding more meaningful reform. On 21 April, the government repealed an emergency law that had been in place since 1963, which allowed the government sweeping authority to suspend constitutional rights. Yet crackdowns on protesters have continued to heighten since the beginning of the uprising. On 24 July, a draft law was created, to be debated by parliament, to allow more political parties, under the conditions that they were not based on religious, tribal or ethnic beliefs and does not discriminate against gender or race. Protesters have dismissed the law as superficial, as Article 8 of the Syrian Constitution, which grants the Ba’ath party the role of leader of the state and society, would need to be repealed.

There have been several international reactions to the uprising. The Arab League, the European Union, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the Gulf Cooperation Council, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States have among others condemned the use of violence against the protesters. The government of Iran, Al-Assad’s government’s regional and political ally, initially suggested the demonstrations were a foreign plot, but President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has since called for reforms and an end to violence. However, military intervention has been generally ruled out by foreign powers. On November 12, the Arab League issued an ultimatum to end violence by November 16 or Syria’s membership in the organisation would be suspended.

15 November 2011, 10:01

Islamization of Tunisia, Egypt possible – Margelov

http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=8880
Moscow, November 15, Interfax - A religious trend is possible in post-revolutionary Tunisia and Egypt despite the remaining state institutions and army command, Chairman of the Federation Council International Affairs Committee Mikhail Margelov told Interfax.

The Ennahda religious movement in Tunisia and the Muslim Brothers in Egypt have appeared on the public scene, he said.

"The Egyptian Islamists demanded that the Military Council must not interfere in the drafting of a new constitution. The ruling National Democratic Party was abolished, and the only organized force in the country is the religious Freedom and Justice Party. So a religious trend is possible both in Tunisia and in Egypt," he said.

The moderate Islamist party Revival won the Constituent Assembly election in Tunisia, and the secular Progressive Democratic Party switched to the opposition, he recalled.

"The Assembly will draft a constitution, elect an interim government and set the days of parliamentary and presidential elections within one year," he said.

The Revival Party proposed a national development model built on Islamic values, Margelov said. "We will see within the next year whether this program will evolve into the 'Islam is the Solution' slogan," he said.

It would be premature to declare hard Islamization of Tunisia, he said. Anyway, the Revival party leaders do not plan compulsory hijabs for women and a ban on alcohol. The party leader said they would follow the example of the moderate Islamist party of Turkey.

The Revival's leaders claim that nothing endangers international partners and investors of Tunisia, among them Russia, and that women's rights will be observed.

The international community has encountered certain consequences of the "Arab Spring" not only in the Middle East and North Africa but also in Sub-Saharan Africa.

"Interests of many states, among them Russia and the U.S., crisscross there. In other words, very close cooperation is required for achieving regional stability even if our states differ in their opinions about possible solutions to the regional problems," Margelov said.

Russia-NATO Council's ambassadorial meeting to be held in Brussels

Today at 09:31 | Interfax-Ukraine

BRUSSELS- The Russia-NATO Council's ambassadorial meeting in Brussels on Tuesday will center on missile defense and arms control.

"There are several items on the agenda. The first and the most serious one is missile defense and arms control," Russia's NATO Ambassador Dmitry Rogozin told Interfax.

The second issue to be discussed is preparations for a Russia-NATO ministerial meeting to be held in Brussels on Dec. 8.

Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov will speak at the ambassadorial meeting and then meet with the leaders of NATO's International Secretariat.

"Unfortunately, NATO Secretary General Andres Fogh Rasmussen will not attend the meetings as he will have to stay at home after a sport injury. The Russia-NATO Council meeting will be chaired by his first deputy, Claudio Bisogniero," Rogozin said.

Antonov also plans to meet with NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Admiral James Stavridis.

Consultations will be held on Wednesday, Nov. 16, between the military delegations, led by Antonov and U.S. Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense James Miller.

"Full-format talks will be held on missile defense," Rogozin said, adding that the Brussels consultations "aim to promote the dialogue between Russian and American presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Barack Obama in Honolulu."

Antonov and Rogozin met with the mission chiefs of NATO's largest member-states late on Monday. On the same day Rogozin met with NATO's U.S Ambassador Ivo Daalder.

Read more: http://www.kyivpost.com/news/russia/detail/116943/#ixzz1dl1uvt2R

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