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| Clockwise from top left: Beshar, Tayfur, Mrs. al-Ameer and Jarba |
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| Clockwise from top left: Dr. Labwani, Mekdad, Hijab and Sabbagh |
Syria’s opposition umbrella known as the Syrian
National Coalition for Revolutionary and Opposition Forces is on its last leg.
It is being dragged kicking and screaming to the
Geneva-2 peace conference slated for January 22 by its newly reelected leader Ahmad Jarba,
its chief Arab benefactor Saudi Arabia, and its so-called Western “friends.”
Saudi Arabia’s Foreign
Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal demanded Tuesday that the National Coalition be
the only legitimate umbrella of the Syrian opposition.
He said the planned
Geneva-2 peace talks should lead to the formation of a national government with
large powers and rejected any role for President Bashar al-Assad and his inner
circle in any future government.
The
Geneva-1 communiqué of June 2012 said, “The transitional governing body would
exercise full executive powers. It could include members of the present
government and the opposition and other groups and shall be formed on the basis
of mutual consent.”
“There are some parties
who issue statements undermining efforts to make Geneva-2 succeed in resolving
the Syria crisis,” al-Faisal told reporters during a visit to Pakistan.
“I fear the aim of these
statements is to derail the conference from its goal to implement the Geneva-1
recommendations,” he added.
During its 121-member
general assembly meeting in Istanbul on Sunday, the Coalition reelected Jarba
as its leader for another six-month term by a 65-52 vote against Syria’s former
Prime Minister Riyad
Hijab.
It also elected Jarba’s
three vice-presidents, namely:
- Faruq Tayfur
- Mrs. Noora al-Ameer, a media figure from Homs, and
- Abdul Hakim Beshar, head of the Kurdish Syrian National Council (KNC), an umbrella group of 15 of the 17 total Kurdish parties in Syria.
Overnight, the Coalition deferred
until January 17 its final decision on joining or boycotting the Geneva-2 talks,
according to Aljazeera
TV channel’s news portal.
The reason is: “Disputes
among Coalition members.”
Aljazeera’s correspondent
in Istanbul Wassima bin Saleh says the postponement follows threats by 68 of
the Coalition’s 121 members to resign from the umbrella organization if it
decided to sit at the Geneva-2 table.
Twenty-eight of the 68
dissidents belong to the Syrian National Council
(SNC) chaired by George
Sabra.
The 40 other members
planning to break away from the Coalition include former Premier Riyad Hijab, Free
Syrian Army spokesman Louay Mekdad, the Coalition’s former secretary-general Mustafa
al-Sabbagh and Dr. Kamal
al-Labwani.
Mushakis.net, Syria’s
satirical online daily, suggests today that a “ghost figure” representing the
Coalition has already delivered the political alliance’s “unconditional approval”
to attend Geneva-2.
Saudi Arabia’s Asharq Alawsat said earlier the hush-hush
missive to the United Nations carried Jarba’s own signature and was handed over
to UN headquarters in New York by Najib al-Ghadban, the Coalition’s representative
to Washington.
