You're reading: Syria opposition may accept role for Assad’s party

BEIRUT — The leader of Syria's main opposition group said Monday that he would not oppose a role for members of President Bashar Assad's ruling Baath party in the country's political future as long as they did not participate in killings during the uprising.

The comments by Syrian National
Council (SNC) head Abdulbaset Sieda appear to be a softening of the
opposition’s stance that it will accept nothing less than the complete
removal of the Assad regime and the president’s inner circle. He told
The Associated Press that the Turkey-based SNC will meet next week in
Qatar and will discuss, among other things, the possibility of Vice
President Farouk al-Sharaa serving as interim leader if Assad steps
down.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Saturday that
al-Sharaa was a figure “whose hands are not contaminated in blood” and
therefore acceptable to Syrian opposition groups.

“We are with any
solution that stops the killings in Syria and respect the ambitions of
the Syrian people in what guarantees that there will be no return to
dictatorship and tyranny in Syria,” Sieda said by telephone from Turkey.

When
asked about al-Sharaa, Sieda said: “We have no information that he
participated in the killings or gave orders but he belongs to the
political leadership.”

Syrian officials say Assad will remain in
his post until his 7-year term ends in 2014 followed by an election
between Assad and other candidates.

Also Monday, the U.N.’s
secretary-general made a strong appeal to halt the flow of arms into
Syria and warned that the crisis threatens stability in the entire
region. Ban Ki-moon said he is “deeply concerned” about the continued
flow of arms to both the Syrian government and opposition forces, and
said a “political solution” is “the only way out of the crisis.”

Speaking
at an international conference on democracy in the French city of
Strasbourg, the U.N. chief described the escalating conflict along the
Syrian-Turkish border and the impact on Lebanon as “extremely
dangerous.”

In his speech to the World Forum for Democracy, Ban
also said the U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi would
return to the region this week to continue international efforts seeking
political transition in Syria.

Sieda said the Syrian opposition
will not repeat a policy carried out in Iraq years ago when members of
Saddam Hussein’s Baath party were forced to leave their jobs after his
government was overthrown during the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

De-Baathification,
a concept started under the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority
which ruled Iraq after the invasion, was an Iraqi government policy of
trying to purge important government jobs and positions of former mid-
and high-ranking members of the Baath Party.

“We will not repeat
the failed experience of de-Baathification,” Sieda said. “We will just
remove all its (Baath party’s) illegitimate privileges and officials who
committed crimes will be put on trial,” he added. “The Baath party will
practice its activities in accordance with the democratic process. We
will not have a revenge policy and we will preserve state institutions,”
he said.

Activists reported violence in different parts of the
country, mostly in the central city of Homs, the northern city of
Aleppo, and the southern region of Daraa.

The Britain-based
activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 20 people were
killed in the southern village of Karak what has been subjected to an
attack by government troops. It said the 20 were killed when vehicles
transporting wounded people were targeted by troops.

Activists estimate about 30,000 people have been killed in the 18-month-old uprising that has morphed into a civil war.

Tensions
remained high along Turkey’s border with Syria a day after a Syrian
mortar round landed some 200 meters (yards) inside Turkey, near the
village of Akcakale. Turkey’s military retaliated, targeting locations
inside Syria.

The incident follows a deadly attack last week, when
another shell hit the area, killing five people and wounding several
others.

The Turkish armed forces have deployed en masse to the region, but residents of Akcakale still fear for their safety.

“If
this shelling is going to continue day in and day out, we can’t live
here. We are not safe, our property is not safe,” said Hamit Ciftcioglu,
whose jewelry store is just 75 meters (yards) from where the mortar
round hit Sunday.

Last week, officials decided to re-open schools
that had been closed for weeks due to dangerous conditions. But children
who lined up Monday morning found they had nowhere to go.

“They
told us schools would reopen on Monday. So we sent our children to
schools this morning but unfortunately they had to come back. They told
us the schools were still closed,” said Isa Tokdemir, a father of two.

Turkey
has vowed to retaliate against the shelling from Syria and Turkey’s
parliament last week approved a bill that would allow cross border
military operations there.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned Syria not to test his government’s patience.