A Syrian Muslim cleric called for national unity on Friday following a week of clashes between Arabs and Kurds that left 25 people dead and more than 100 wounded in northern Syrian towns.
Salah Kuftaro, the son of Syria's Grand Mufti Ahmad Kuftaro, said in a Friday sermon that the riots were a "strange phenomenon" that should not be generalized.
"The Kurds must not be viewed as troublemakers," said Kuftaro, imam of the Abu al-Nour Mosque in Damascus. "The Kurds are honest citizens and we will not allow [anybody] to say Arabs and Kurds. We are all Syrians."
The violence began March 12 with a brawl between supporters of rival soccer teams before a match in Qamishli, 775km northeast of Damascus. One team had many Kurdish players, the other had Arab players.
The fighting continued the next day when Kurds went on the rampage during a funeral for the riot victims, and it spread to Hasakah, a city 80km southwest of Qamishli.
On Tuesday, Kurds battled Arab policemen in Syria's second biggest city, Aleppo, 320km north of Damascus, and the nearby town of Afreen.
In the government's first report on casualties, Syrian Interior Minister Ali Hammoud said Thursday that a total of 25 people were killed in the violence, 19 of them in Hasakah and nearby cities and six in Aleppo.
The government has blamed the violence on what it calls "mobs and opportunists" who have been influenced from abroad, and Kuftaro repeated those claims.
"We are subjected to a major conspiracy that aims to harm us from inside after the failure of external plots," Kuftaro said. "Syria has long been an example of national coherence."
Also Friday, hundreds of Kurds demonstrated in a suburb near Damascus denouncing what they called "some demagogues who infiltrated Syrian areas" during last week's clashes.
Participants in the apparently pro-government march in the predominantly Kurdish suburb of Dumar, 8km west of Damascus, affirmed their adherence to national unity and condemned "threats and pressures" against their country.
The Al-Thawra government newspaper called on the government to act firmly against "any move or behavior that may harm national unity."
Kurds comprise about 1.5 million of Syria's 18.5 million people and live mostly in the underdeveloped provinces of Qamishli and Hasakah.
In a statement faxed to reporters, the New York-based Human Rights Watch criticized the Syrian government's handling of the riots and said it should take immediate steps to curb excessive use of force and halt mass arrests following the unrest.
"Syria's Kurds have endured decades of severe discrimination under Baath Party rule," said Joe Stork, acting executive director of the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch.
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
RSS