Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

Syria: Opposition says some Assad officials can have role in future government | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
Select Page
Media ID: 55344229
Caption:

Vendors sell produce along a damaged street, during the holy fasting month of Ramadan, in Aleppo’s Al-Shaar neighborhood on June 27, 2015.
(Reuters/Abdalrhman Ismail)


Vendors sell produce along a damaged street, during the holy fasting month of Ramadan, in Aleppo's Al-Shaar neighborhood on June 27, 2015.  (Reuters/Abdalrhman Ismail)

Vendors sell produce along a damaged street, during the holy fasting month of Ramadan, in Aleppo’s Al-Shaar neighborhood on June 27, 2015.
(Reuters/Abdalrhman Ismail)

Beirut, Asharq Al-Awsat—Syria’s armed opposition has said it is willing to allow members of President Bashar Al-Assad’s cabinet, who have not taken part in bloodshed, to participate in any future transitional government.

Rami Dalati, a member of the Free Syrian Army’s (FSA) Military Command Higher Council, told Asharq Al-Awsat that a Syrian opposition delegation will meet with the UN Envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura in Istanbul on Friday to inform him about its willingness to accept some Assad officials, who have no blood on their hands, into the ranks of any transitional government.

De Mistura’s meeting with the delegation, which represents several armed opposition factions, comes as part of a series of talks he has held in the past few weeks with representatives of Syrian political parties, independent figures and activists to find a political solution to the crisis in Syria.

He said: “[The opposition’s] military factions will emphasize their position of rejecting the presence of Assad or any of his political and security officials in any solution on Syria, but at the same time they will announce to the UN envoy that they will accept the participation of some technocratic figures who had no role in killing the Syrian people, such as some of the current ministers in the Syrian government.”

Khaled Khoja, leader of the Syrian National Coalition, met with de Mistura in Geneva on Thursday to discuss the political and humanitarian situation in Syria. Khoja told the UN official that forming a transitional government would end the crisis in Syria.

De Mistura is expected to travel to New York on Monday to inform the UN Security-General Ban Ki-moon about the outcome of his talks in Geneva.

A sense of optimism prevails among Syria’s opposition groups that a political solution could be reached, a senior opposition figure has told Asharq Al-Awsat.

Hisham Marwa, the Coalition’s vice-president, said: “There is a conviction that [Assad’s] government will eventually yield to the military developments on the ground in the light of the significant progress made by opposition factions.”

Meanwhile, an alliance of Syrian Islamist rebel groups launched a series of attacks on government-held areas of the northern city of Aleppo on Friday.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels fired hundreds of rockets at several government-held districts of Aleppo early on Friday. The shelling left at least nine people dead and dozens injured, said the Observatory, which gathers information from a network of activists on the ground.

The Syrian military responded by carrying out a series of airstrikes on rebel positions in Syria’s second-largest city.

The capture of Aleppo, a former commercial and industrial hub, would be a major blow to government forces who in recent months have suffered a series of setbacks by rebels in the north and south.

The city has been divided between government forces, who control the western districts, and rebels, who control the eastern areas, since mid-2012.

More than 230,000 people are believed to have been killed in Syria since the uprising against Assad’s government began in March 2011.