Syria on Sunday threatened to retaliate against any country that formally recognizes a recently established opposition National Council, which is seeking international support for the six-month-old uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The formation of the council has been welcomed by Assad’s Western critics, including the US and France, however they have not embraced it diplomatically as they did the Libyan rebels who overthrew former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi.
“We will take tough measures against any state which recognizes this illegitimate council,” Libyan Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem told a news conference in Damascus.
Speaking alongside a group of Latin American ministers who visited Syria to show support for Assad, Moualem also dismissed Turkish criticism of Assad’s crackdown and said no one should think the West would launch military action against Syria.
“The West will not attack Syria because no one will pay the bill,” he said. “The West chose economic sanctions to starve our people, -under the pretext of protecting human rights.”
The UN says 2,900 people have been killed in Assad’s crackdown on mainly peaceful protests. The Syrian leadership blames armed groups backed by foreign powers for the violence, saying 1,100 members of the security forces have been killed since the unrest broke out in March.
Activists reported clashes across the country on Sunday, from Jabal al-Zawiyah near the northern border with Turkey to the southern province of Deraa.
At least 31 people were killed across Syria on Sunday in a series of shootings, including fighting between gunmen believed to be army deserters and troops loyal to Assad, a Syrian activist group said yesterday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 14 of the dead were civilians and 17 were from the army and security forces.
The British-based Observatory said suspected deserters killed eight soldiers in simultaneous attacks on three army posts in the northern province of Idlib.
In the city of Homs, seven civilians were shot dead and another eight people were later killed in clashes between troops and suspected deserters, the group said.
Homs has seen some of the worst violence in recent weeks, including a series of unexplained attacks on local officials and university staff.
The grassroots Local Coordination Committees said in a statement yesterday that it had collected names of 180 people it said were killed in Homs last month and another 73 killed in the first nine days of this month.
Foreign media are largely barred from entering Syria and it was not possible to confirm the reports independently.
On Saturday, activists said security forces killed at least two people when they shot at tens of thousands of mourners at the funeral of a Kurdish opposition figure.
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