Syrian National Council Could Call for Outside Help
Syria's largest opposition group threatened on Wednesday to seek outside help to stop the regime's "irresponsible" deadly crackdown against pro-democracy protesters.
Speaking in the Libyan capital, Syrian National Council member Najib Ghadbian also told reporters that a peaceful revolution could bring down the regime of embattled President Bashar al-Assad.
"There is a growing pressure from within Syria, mainly coming from the regime ... to militarize this protest movement," Ghadbian said.
"We do believe as a matter of principle that keeping the peaceful nature of the revolution is the right way to in fact bring down this regime."
"However, if the regime continues to be so irresponsible ... our main objective is to call for the protection of civilians," he added, saying 35 people have been killed in the crackdown in the flashpoint central Syrian city of Homs in the past 48 hours.
Ghadbian said foreign help could take the form of creating a buffer zone, or imposing a no-fly zone, as the United Nations did in Libya to protect pro-democracy protesters from violent repression by strongman Moammar Gadhafi.
"This question is different from calling for a military intervention by the outside," he insisted.
Ghadbian was one of several senior members of the SNC currently visiting Libya, the only country yet to recognize the Syrian opposition movement as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people.
The SNC, the largest and most representative Syrian opposition grouping, was founded in Istanbul at the end of August and numbers 140 members, half of them living in Syria.
Ghadbian voiced optimism that members of the Assad regime would join the opposition movement to help with its peaceful ouster.
"We do believe there is a possibility that certain members of the regime are going to join this revolution and eventually ... that this revolution is going to succeed." He did not elaborate.
The SNC delegation earlier met the head of Libya's National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdul Jalil.
Hassan al-Sughair, a senior member of Libya's NTC, said the new regime in Tripoli would offer "all kinds of support" to the group, to guarantee the success of the Syrian revolution.
On Monday Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu also met leaders of the opposition movement in Ankara, for their first official talks, a Turkish diplomat said.
"Turkey advised the (Syrian National Council) to be unified and work together to proceed towards democratic and peaceful transition in Syria. ... Because the current situation cannot be sustained like that," the diplomat said.
Protests against Assad's Baath Party, which has ruled Syria unchallenged for close to 50 years, erupted in March and have shown no signs of dying down despite a rising death toll.
The United Nations on Friday said more than 3,000 people, including 187 children, have been killed in a fierce crackdown on the dissent.
At an urgent session in Cairo on Sunday, the Arab League called for "national dialogue" between Syria's government and the opposition in the Egyptian capital by the end of the month to help end the violence and avoid "foreign intervention" in Syria.
But the Syrian government newspaper Ath-Thawra dismissed the call and lashed out at the 22-member Arab League accusing it of serving U.S. and Israeli interests instead of Arab ones.
Source: Agence France Presse
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