Syria opposition rejects UN plan for peaceful political transition

Syrian opposition groups have rejected a UN-brokered plan for peaceful political transition in the country.

Senior figures called the proposals “ambiguous” and a “waste of time”, and vowed not to negotiate with president Bashar Assad or members of his “murderous” regime.

An international conference in Geneva on Saturday accepted UN special envoy Kofi Annan’s plan for the creation of a transitional government, but at Russia’s insistence the compromise agreement left the door open to Syria’s president being part of the interim administration.

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The US backed away from insisting that the plan should explicitly call for Mr Assad to have no role in a new Syrian government, hoping the concession would encourage Russia to put greater pressure on its ally to end the violent crackdown which the opposition says has claimed more than 14,000 lives. Syrian opposition figures rejected any notion of sharing in a transition with Mr Assad.

Veteran Syrian opposition figure Haitham Maleh asked: “Every day I ask myself, ‘Do they not see how the Syrian people are being slaughtered?’

“It is a catastrophe, the country has been destroyed - and they want us then to sit with the killer?”

Mr Maleh described the agreement reached in Geneva as a waste of time and of “no value on the ground”.

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“The Syrian people are the ones who will decide the battle on the ground, not those sitting in Geneva or New York or anywhere else,” he said.

Bassma Kodmani, a Paris-based spokesperson for Syria’s main opposition group, the Syrian National Council, said the agreement is “ambiguous” and lacks a mechanism or timetable for implementation.

“We cannot say that there is any positive outcome today,” she said.

“The Syrians will not accept engaging in any political track while the killing continues.”

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There was no reaction from the Syrian regime to the Annan plan, but Mr Assad has repeatedly said his government has a responsibility to eliminate terrorists and will not accept any non-Syrian model of governance.

State-run newspaper Al-Thawra said yesterday that “the Syrians are the ones who can determine their future”.

The UN plan calls for establishing a transitional government of national unity, with full executive powers, that could include members of Mr Assad’s government as well as the opposition and other groups. It would oversee the drafting of a new constitution and elections.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton insisted on Saturday that Mr Assad would still have to go, saying it is now “incumbent on Russia and China to show Assad the writing on the wall” and help force his departure.

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“There is a credible alternative to the Assad regime,” she said.

“What we have done here is to strip away the fiction that he and those with blood on their hands can stay in power.”

Mr Annan was appointed the special envoy in February, and in March he submitted a six-point peace plan that he said the Assad regime accepted. It led to the April 12 ceasefire that failed to take hold.

UN observers sent to monitor the ceasefire suspended their patrols in Syria on June 16 due to a sharp rise in violence and have been confined to their hotels since.

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Meanwhile, Turkey scrambled fighter jets to its border yesterday after Syrian helicopters flew too close to the frontier.

A military statement said F-16 jets were scrambled, and sent to the border after the helicopters flew in the area on at least three occasions.

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