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| Walid al-Moallem, Foreign Minister of Syria, is guided to the podium before speaking at the 67th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters, Monday, Oct. 1, 2012. |
UNITED NATIONS
(AP) -- Syria's foreign minister brought his regime's case before the
world Monday, accusing the U.S. and its allies of promoting "terrorism"
and blaming everyone from neighbors and extremists to the media for
escalating the war - except the Syrian government.
Addressing
ministers and diplomats from the United Nation's 193 member states as
fighting spread in the historic Old City of Aleppo, Foreign Minister
Walid al-Moallem lashed out at calls in Washington and in Arab and
European capitals for Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down as
interference in Syria's domestic affairs.
Al-Moallem
accused extremists of prolonging the crisis and denounced countries
such as the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey for supporting the
opposition's "terrorism."
"
This terrorism
which is externally supported is accompanied by unprecedented media
provocation based on igniting religious extremism sponsored by
well-known states in the region," he told the U.N. General Assembly.
Members
of the opposition said it was common knowledge that these neighboring
Arab countries were supporting and financing the rebels, but said the
Assad government had brought it upon itself after cracking down on
protests that began peacefully 18 months ago.
"It
is the regime's mindless, brutal and criminal, military crackdown that
pushed the Syrian people to ask for help from the international
community, from NATO and from the devil himself if necessary to protect
them," Haitham Manna, a Paris-based veteran Syrian dissident who heads
the external branch of the National
Coordination Body opposition group,
told The Associated Press.
Al-Moallem's speech
followed his meeting with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in which the
U.N. chief "raised in the strongest terms the continued killings,
massive destruction, human rights abuses, and aerial and artillery
attacks committed by the government," according to a statement by his
press office. "He stressed that it was the Syrian people who were being
killed every day, and appealed to the Government of Syria to show
compassion to its own people."
The Syrian
foreign minister in his address invited the opposition to "work together
to stop the shedding of Syrian blood" and said that a Syrian-led
dialogue could produce a "more pluralistic and democratic" country.
The opposition called the speech a classic case of regime "propaganda," and dismissed his calls for dialogue as not genuine.
"While
the brutal and delusional Syrian regime continues to pay lip service to
diplomacy, its actions over the past 18 months have demonstrated beyond
any doubt that they have no interest in meaningful reform or dialogue"
Radwan Ziadeh, a U.S.-based spokesman for the chief opposition group,
the Syrian National Council, said in a statement.
Underscoring
how deeply the Syrian foreign minister felt that conspiratal hands were
playing in the war-ridden country, he said that armed groups were
inciting civilians in border areas to flee to neighboring countries "to
fabricate a refugee crisis."
Up to 3,000
Syrians are leaving the country every day, said Vincent Cochetel of the
U.N. refugee agency.
Some 300,000 Syrians are registered, or waiting to
register with the U.N. in Turkey, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon and the
agency expects the number to grow to 700,000 by the year's end.
Some
regional and international parties, al-Moallem said, are seeking to
exploit the conflict and create "a state of instability to ensure the
need for foreign interference."
Al-Moallem called for a Syrian-led dialogue to agree on a roadmap to "a more pluralistic and democratic Syria."
His call, similar to other overtures made by Assad's regime, is unlikely to be heeded by the opposition.
Most
opposition factions have repeatedly dismissed the government's
purported peace initiatives as propaganda intended to buy time. They say
they will accept nothing less that Assad stepping down as a
precondition for talks.
But on many other
points, the Syrian opposition's political factions and the rebel groups
fighting on the ground are deeply divided.
Mokhtar
Lamani, the Damascus representative of the new U.N.-Arab League peace
envoy to Syria, said Monday that the large number of rival rebel and
opposition groups is one of the main obstacles to Lakhdar Brahimi's
goal, which is to broker an end to the Syrian crisis.
A
vast array of such groups inside and outside the country has been
dogged by infighting and mutual accusations of treachery. The rebels
include army defectors and gunmen who work under the rag-tag Free Syrian
Army.
Lamani told The Associated Press in an
interview that a peace deal is difficult because of the "high level of
mistrust between all parties."
Brahimi, a
veteran Algerian diplomat, waded into Syria's complicated diplomatic
landscape last month when he replaced Kofi Annan, the former U.N. chief
whose peace plan for Syria failed to end the violence that activists say
has so far killed more than 30,000 people.
Brahimi,
who visited Damascus last month, will pay a second visit to Syria soon
and will tour the country, Lamani said. Asked whether he still sees hope
of a political solution in Syria despite the bloodshed, Lamani said
that's why he's in Damascus - "because I hope that in the end there
would be some light."
At the United Nations,
al-Moallem denounced international interference in domestic affairs
under the pretexts of "humanitarian intervention" or the "responsibility
to protect" civilians from possible war crimes and crimes against
humanity.
His attack clearly was aimed at the
U.S., Britain and France and their support for the revolution in Libya
that ousted Moammar Gadhafi.
"Permanent
members of the Security Council, who launched wars under the pretext of
combating terrorism now support terrorism in my country," he said.
He made clear that Assad has no intention of relinquishing the presidency.
The
Security Council's major powers are deeply divided over the 18-month
Syria conflict. Russia and China, key backers of Assad, have vetoed
three resolutions by the U.S., Britain and France, who back the
opposition and want the threat of sanctions to pressure the government
to agree to a political transition.
Some of
the heaviest fighting Monday took place in the northern city of Aleppo,
Syria's cultural and commercial capital, where rebels recently launched a
new offensive. Opposition groups put the death toll at between 40 and
95.
Northwest of Aleppo, government warplanes
bombed the town of Salqin, some four miles (six kilometers) from the
border with Turkey in Idlib province, which has seen intense clashes
between government troops and rebels in recent months. Activist groups
said the death toll there was between 21 and 30.
The state-run news agency SANA said dozens of "terrorists" were killed in Salqin, including some non-Syrian foreign fighters.
