Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met with leaders of Syria’s opposition movement, urging unity in pursuit of a peaceful transition in the country, a Turkish diplomat said yesterday.
“The minister met with representatives of the Syrian opposition, for the first time, in Ankara on Monday,” the diplomat said on condition of anonymity.
“Turkey advised the [Syrian National Council, SNC] 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.
Davutoglu also condemned the assassination of the dissident figure Ziad al-Ubeidi, the diplomat added.
Halid Hodja, a Turkish-based member of the SNC, said some representatives of the council met on Monday in Istanbul to appoint a general secretariat.
The SNC, the largest and most representative Syrian opposition grouping, was founded in Istanbul at the end of August and numbers 140 members, half who live in Syria.
Diplomats in Damascus had said the SNC’s rise could result from an agreement between the US, Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood and unite the main opposition strands: nationalists, liberals and Islamists.
Ankara has expressed frustration with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for failing to listen to the people, whose almost daily pro-democracy rallies have been met with violent repression.
That sentiment was unlikely to change after Syrian tank forces killed at least 25 people in a thrust into the opposition hotbed of Homs, residents said.
It was one of the highest daily death tolls in the city that has seen some of the most extensive protests in a tide of unrest where protesters are demanding an end to 41 years of repressive Assad family rule.
The clashes on Monday followed the deployment of loyalist militiamen in Sunni Muslim districts, fanning tension between the city’s Sunni majority and members of Assad’s minority Alawite sect, residents said by telephone.
Tanks firing heavy machineguns swept into Sunni districts of Bab Sbaa, Bab Dreib and Bab Amro where large protests demanding the removal of Assad have taken place regularly, residents and activists said.
They said loyalist forces encountered rudimentary resistance, although army deserters were helping some inhabitants defend their neighborhoods and managed to hit several tanks with rocket-propelled grenades.
“Most residents of Bab Sbaa have fled. The troops are firing heavily from tanks and from the roadblocks in the area. The fire coming from the other direction is small and intermittent,” a local resident said by telephone.
Foreign reporters are largely banned from Syria, making independent confirmation of reported events difficult.
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