The participants in the meeting reiterated their rejection of dialogue with the Damascus regime.
The founding meeting of the National committee for the Support of the Syrian Revolution, led by former Syrian Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam, commenced yesterday in Paris. The attendees at the meeting criticized what they perceived as the Syrian National Council’s ambiguous political stance, refusing any dialogue with the authorities in Damascus.
During the opening session of the three-day gathering, the participants called for the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime using any means necessary, “including the mobilization of the Syrian National Army and foreign military intervention.”
Abdel Halim Khaddam stated that the National Committee to Support the Syrian Opposition, comprising 61 members, would strive to unite all Syrian political forces and actors seeking to overthrow the existing regime in Damascus. The commission aims to mobilize financial, political, and diplomatic support for the Syrian revolution. In response to a question from Al-Jazeera Net, Khaddam, who defected from his country’s regime in late 2005, criticized the founding parties of the Syrian National Council, considering their approach as “discriminatory and exclusionary” towards significant factions within the Syrian opposition. He added that “those who established that council wanted to control its size and composition.”
The Syrian politician revealed that he had not yet contacted the leaders of the National Council, but did not rule out future discussions with them. He emphasized that his organization would engage with all Syrian actors seeking to overthrow the regime without exception.
Khaddam deemed it necessary to utilize all means to overthrow the regime, “including the possibility of movement by a group of Syrian military personnel or international military intervention.” The Paris-based Syrian opposition figure explained his position on employing foreign forces, stating that a tyrannical regime is not a national one and that it is “more brutal and worse than any foreign occupation in any historical period or region worldwide.” Khaddam strongly condemned Iran’s support for the Damascus authorities, considering it an alliance between Tehran and the Syrian regime along with its regional allies.
He called on the Alawite community, to which the Assad family belongs, and former Syrian officials, whom he referred to as the “rational people of the Alawite community,” to voice their stance on the events in Syria. He believed that their silence places them within the regime’s circle and holds them responsible for its crimes. Khaddam stressed that the revolution is not directed against the Alawite community but against the “tyrannical and corrupt” regime. He emphasized that the revolution “will not promote hatred or seek revenge, but will hold accountable all those involved in the regime’s crimes regardless of their affiliation.”
