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Diplomat Warns of Spillover of Syrian Crisis
TEHRAN (FNA)- Tehran’s Envoy to Rome Seyed Mohammad Ali Hosseini called for rapid termination of foreign funding and arming of the Syrian rebel groups, and cautioned that continuation of such support will result in a spillover of the Syrian crisis.
FARS News Agency
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Speaking to FNA on Sunday, Hosseini stated that the current crisis in Syria needs “political, not military” solution, and added, “The opposition groups and the Syrian government should hold talks and find a way to end the crisis.”
“We believe that if the existing conditions worsen, their consequences will spread to the other regional countries,” he said.
“Termination of financial and arms support by foreign parties for extremist and terrorist groups is the first and the most important provision of obtaining results in Syria. Countries that are supporting these groups should know that if they maintain the present policy, unrests will spill over into their countries.”
Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011 with organized attacks by well-armed gangs against Syrian police forces and border guards being reported across the country.
Hundreds of people, including members of the security forces, have been killed, when some protest rallies turned into armed clashes.
The government blames outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorist groups for the deaths, stressing that the unrest is being orchestrated from abroad.
In October 2011, calm was eventually restored in the Arab state after President Assad started a reform initiative in the country, but Israel, the US and its Arab allies are seeking hard to bring the country into chaos through any possible means. Tel Aviv, Washington and some Arab capitals have been staging various plots in the hope of increasing unrests in Syria.
The US daily, Washington Post, reported in May that the Syrian rebels and terrorist groups battling the President Bashar al-Assad’s government have received significantly more and better weapons in recent weeks, a crime paid for by the Persian Gulf Arab states and coordinated by the United States.
The newspaper, quoting opposition activists and US and foreign officials, reported that Obama administration officials emphasized the administration has expanded contacts with opposition military forces to provide the Persian Gulf nations with assessments of rebel credibility and command-and-control infrastructure.
According to the report, material is being stockpiled in Damascus, in Idlib near the Turkish border and in Zabadani on the Lebanese border.
Opposition activists who several months ago said the rebels were running out of ammunition said in May that the flow of weapons – most bought on the black market in neighboring countries or from elements of the Syrian military in the past – has significantly increased after a decision by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Persian Gulf states to provide millions of dollars in funding each month.
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Al Arabiya
Tuesday, 26 March 2013
Saudi Crown Prince Salman al Saud looks on during the opening of the Arab League summit in Doha March 26, 2013. (Reuters)
Al Arabiya With Agencies -
Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz, in a statement to the Arab League read by Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, warned of serious repercussions of the Syrian crisis on the Middle East’ regional security.
King Abdullah said the Syrian regime of embattled President Bashar al-Assad is bent to spoil any initiative to achieve a diplomatic solution to the crisis.
Syrian opposition representatives took the country’s seat for the first time at an Arab League summit that opened in Qatar on Tuesday, a significant diplomatic boost for the forces fighting President Bashar Assad’s regime.
In a ceremonious entrance accompanied by applause, a delegation led by Moaz al-Khatib, the former president of the main opposition alliance – the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition – took the seats assigned for Syria at the invitation of Qatar’s emir, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.
Al-Khatib used the forum to call for a greater U.S. role in aiding the rebels and said he had appealed to Secretary of State John Kerry to consider using NATO Patriot anti-missile batteries in Turkey to help defend northern Syria against strikes by Assad’s forces.
The decision for the opposition to take Syria’s seat was made at the recommendation of Arab foreign ministers earlier this week in the Qatari capital, Doha. The Arab League in 2011 suspended the Syrian government’s membership in the organization as punishment for the regime’s crackdown on opponents.
The Qatari ruler, who chairs the summit, said the Syrian opposition deserves “this representation because of the popular legitimacy they have won at home and the broad support they won abroad and the historic role they have assumed in leading the revolution and preparing for building the new Syria.”
The diplomatic triumph and Qatar’s praise, however, could not conceal the disarray within the top ranks of the Syrian opposition.
Besides al-Khatib, the Syrian delegation included Ghassan Hitto, recently elected prime minister of a planned interim government to administer rebel-held areas in Syria, and two prominent opposition figures, George Sabra and Suheir Atassi.
Khatib however was the one who did the speaking, after the opposition flag was raised in place of the official Syrian bunting.
“We demand … all forms of support from our friends and brothers including our full right for self-defense and the seat of Syria at the United Nations and at other international organizations,” he told the summit.
He called for a “freezing of the funds of the regime which it had stolen from our people,” estimated by the opposition at around two billion dollars.
He also stressed that the Syrian people alone would determine the future of their country.
“They ask who will rule Syria. The people of Syria will decide, not any other state in this world,” Khatib said, possibly alluding to accusations by Damascus that the rebels are implementing Qatari and Saudi agendas.
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Tue Mar 26, 2013 3:13PM GMT
Press TV
Interview with Kevin Barrett
…all of these countries are under the sway of the international Zionist and they are trying to break up [Syria] as part of the Oded Yinon plan to smash all of the potential enemies of Israel in the region into little tiny statelets along ethnic and sectarian lines. So that is the real reason of course that Israel wants to make friends with Turkey to get Turkey fully on board with the Israeli plan to destroy Syria.”
A political analyst tells Press TV that the real reason that Israel wants to make friends with Turkey is to get Turkey fully on board with the Israeli plan to destroy Syria.
The comments came after Israeli President Shimon Peres said Israel has a thousand reasons to be friends with Turkey, expressing his satisfaction with the resumption of relations with Ankara. Peres stated that somehow both Israel and Turkey “wanted to put an end to this misunderstanding and return to the good relations that have existed between Turkey and ourselves for many good years.”
Press TV has conducted an interview with Dr. Kevin Barrett, author and political commentator, to further discuss the issue. What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.
Press TV: One thousand reasons for Israel and Turkey to be on friendly terms according to Shimon Peres, what are some of those reasons in your opinion?
Barrett: Well I guess the one thousand reasons for Israel and Turkey to be friends according to Shimon Peres are the one thousand Zionist agents who are planted throughout the Turkish military, many of them at very high levels.
Turkey was taken over by Zionist basically agents of international banking and freemasonry with the end of the Caliphate and Ataturk with his fascist war on Islam throughout the past decades in Turkey was the worst enemy of Islam on the planet and in that sense Turkey under Ataturk and his followers became aligned with Zionism.
But today Turkey is gradually becoming a democracy, an Islamic democracy and a vast majority of the people of Turkey have absolutely no use for Israel.
So those one thousand reasons that Peres was talking about are not actual policy reasons, they are certainly not reasons that have anything to do with what the Turkish people want. Those reasons I would say are the remaining members of the Turkish military who haven’t yet been purged due to their treasonous links with Israel and Israeli-linked organized crime networks.
Sibel Edmonds, former FBI translator here in the US has talked extensively about these Israeli-linked organized crime networks that operate in Turkey. They smuggle heroin, they were involved in planning the 9/11 attacks according to Sibel Edmonds, she is one of our biggest whistleblowers here in the USA and they have purged a number of these organized crime figures and Israeli agents from the Turkish military already.
I believe there are well over a dozen Turkish high level military officers serving life sentences in prison for plotting to carry out 9/11 style false flag terrorist attacks in Turkey to overthrow their democratic government and install a fascist military regime in crackdown and descent.
Press TV: Let me interrupt you there, many are saying and also as admitted by the Israeli and Turkish side the reason for the recent rapprochement between Israel as well as Turkey is for the sake of Syria in manufacturing what is taking place there to their advantage.
Do you agree with that because many are saying this is basically a declaration of war against Syria?
Barrett: Well yes. Israel wants Turkey to help the Zionists destroy Syria in retaliation for Syria’s help for Hezbollah and Hamas in the recent military victories over Israel.
So that’s the kind of a bottom line here is that Israel is using all of its influence in all of this various countries that it largely owns, Turkey being one of them or semi owns it, the USA being another, Saudi Arabia being the third, all of these countries are under the sway of the international Zionist and they are trying to break up [Syria] as part of the Oded Yinon plan to smash all of the potential enemies of Israel in the region into little tiny statelets along ethnic and sectarian lines.
So that is the real reason of course that Israel wants to make friends with Turkey to get Turkey fully on board with the Israeli plan to destroy Syria.
Press TV: And also right now we have just seen Israeli forces open fire on Syrian territory from the occupied Golan Heights, is this the beginning of an intervention that we are going to see as a result of this rapprochement between Israel and Turkey?
Barrett: Well it will be very interesting if Israel is the outside party that intervenes most blatantly in Syria and that would show all of the supposedly Muslim friends of the supposed resistance in Syria which is really mostly mercenaries and terrorists from armed and paid for by other countries that the real force behind this destabilization of Syria is Israel.
So that would be a strategic mistake on part of the Israelis and their allies in the destabilization of Syria for Israel to directly invade Syria or get even more involved, obviously involved than it already is.
AHK/JR
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Press TV
Qatar’s Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani (R) attends the opening of the Arab League summit in Doha on March 26, 2013.
Tue Mar 26, 2013 3:41PM GMT
Related Interviews:
Iran has criticized the Arab League (AL) for giving Syria’s seat to the foreign-backed opposition, warning that the move will set a “dangerous” precedence in the Arab world.
This hasty decision can turn into a new procedure and be applied to other Arab League member states in the future, Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Tuesday.
“This measure taken by the Arab League will be taken to mean the end of the [Arab] League’s role in the region,” he noted.
The Iranian official also advised Arab leaders to end their silence toward Israel’s aggression and crimes and focus their efforts on supporting the Palestinian people.
In November 2011, the Arab League suspended Syria’s membership, though Damascus is a founding member of the organization.
It consequently called on the opposition National Coalition on March 6 “to form an executive body to take up Syria’s seat” at the AL summit scheduled for Tuesday in the Qatari capital of Doha.
Damascus has censured the decision and condemned the Arab League for giving the country’s “stolen seat to bandits and thugs,” Syrian government daily al-Thawra said in a report published on Monday.
Iraq and Algeria are the only countries that have expressed reservations about the decision, while Lebanon has opposed the move.
Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011, and many people, including large numbers of Syrian army and security personnel, have been killed in the violence.
The Syrian government says that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country, and there are reports that a very large number of militants are foreign nationals.
Damascus says the West and its regional allies including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey are supporting the militants.
MRS/SS
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Fri Mar 22, 2013 4:28PM GMT
Interview with Vyacheslav Matuza
They (the US) don’t like real investigation; they don’t like a real solution to the Syrian crisis; they are trying to achieve their egoistic political goals in the Middle East not less that’s why to reach any compromise, any political solution with such kind of approach it will be very difficult for all those who are trying to push Syrian crisis from military content to political dialogue between Syrian political sides.”
Related Viewpoints:
An analyst says the United States does not wish to resolve the Syrian crisis as Washington is misusing it to pursue their own egoistic political goals in the Middle East region
The comment comes as the United Nations will launch an independent investigation into the recent use of chemical weapons in the Syria unrest, which would be “a crime against humanity.”
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced the decision on Thursday a day after the Syrian government called for an independent inquiry into the terrorist chemical attack in Aleppo.
“I have decided to conduct a United Nations investigation into the possible use of chemical weapons in Syria,” Ban told reporters in his office, adding that “I intend for this investigation to start as soon as practically possible.”
Press TV has conducted an interview with former councilor of the Russian Embassy in Washington, Mr. Vyacheslav Matuza in Moscow to further discuss the issue. What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.
Press TV: Sir, welcome to the program do you believe the US, France and Britain are advertently trying to delay this probe and more importantly why is the United Nations rather still lingering in this case?
Matuza: The question of who stalled the chemical attack, the use of chemical weapons in Syria by opposition military groups means that obviously it is the stance of the United States the Syrian crisis as a whole because the United States is using the Syrian crisis in political purposes not for people’s right for democracy what is proclaimed before because basically if they want democracy, if they want the rights of the people to provide rights for people to develop political developments that means they should respond positively on requirement on Syrian government to make everything easy to state.
Why they are refusing is political reasons that’s stalling regarding this question in Security Council specially it means that boycotting this issue in the United Nations that means they don’t like real investigation; they don’t like a real solution to the Syrian crisis; they are trying to achieve their egoistic political goals in the Middle East not less that’s why to reach any compromise, any political solution with such kind of approach it will be very difficult for all those who are trying to push Syrian crisis from military content to political dialogue between Syrian political sides.
I think that reflects a global approach of the United States to the developments in the Middle East in different areas, regions in the Arab World, in North Africa, in Iran, in Afghanistan, in Middle Asia.
So I think it is a mirror of political stance of the United States towards the developments in this region of the world.
Press TV: Mr. Matuza one last question before we leave you how do you perceive the fact that certain European countries have been persistently pressing for the EU to lift the arms embargo on Syria?
Matuza: Well, we are speaking about positions of different countries not only European but some Arab states, the Arab League, we found out that America is manipulating today by some Arab states, the Arab League and also they are using this very vulnerable position of some European countries like France, like Britain who are really making some declarations, supportive declarations to the American policy in the world.
I think that the main counterpart of Russia in the world is not European countries, not the Arab world but the United States of America. That is clear and that obviously answers all these questions.
VG/JR
Public Health Agency of Canada
Dr. Allison McGeer in a laboratory at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto on Tuesday January 27, 2004. (/Frank Gunn / The Canadian Press)
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