Foreign-backed rebels block Homs civilians’ release

Crescent International

Jumada' al-Ula' 26, 1435 2014-03-27

Daily News Analysis

by Crescent International

Syrian refugees are pawns in the hands of foreign-backed terrorists and their political allies. The more misery they can inflict and project about the refugees, the greater degree of sympathy they hope to garner by blaming the Syrian government for their plight. Yet, in Geneva, it has been proved that it is the terrorists that refusing any help to the refugees or allow them to leave besieged towns.

Geneva,

Monday January 27, 2014, 09:27 EST

Foreign-backed terrorists in Syria have set conditions that may derail implementation of a new minor deal reached at the Geneva-II conference on Sunday January 26. Under the deal, the government has agreed to let women and children leave the besieged city of Homs. The Syrian government has been trying for nearly two years to secure the release of civilians—women and children—from the besieged city but foreign-backed terrorists have frustrated all such efforts.

Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad confirmed this, yet again, in Geneva. He said armed groups were preventing women and children from leaving the besieged area of Homs. "I have been personally involved over the past two years to get these women and children out of the Old City of Homs... In all these attempts we have been prevented by the armed groups, who did not allow a single person out," Mekdad stated.

Mekdad’s statement came after the UN-Arab League envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, said at the Geneva peace talks that Damascus would allow women and children safe passage from terrorist-held areas of the city where they have been trapped for more than a year.

The foreign-backed terrorists, however, refuse to allow any civilians out of the city unless Syrian forces lift the siege completely. They also demand UN or International Committee of the Red Cross guarantees that Syrian forces would not arrest those leaving. The rebels want to use the agreement to sneak out of the city where they see a grim end. The Syrian army has made steady progress over the last nine months and the terrorists are getting desperate.

The talks in Geneva that started on January 22 were supposed to work out a deal for a transition government but given deep distrust and undisguised hatred toward each other, no progress was made.

Instead each side traded accusations with the Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem telling US Secretary of State John Kerry bluntly that it was none of his business to determine who should rule Syria. This came in response to Kerry’s assertion that President Bashar al-Asad had no more role to play in Syria’s future and should leave.

Kerry also made the astonishing claim not contained in the Geneva-I communiqué of June 2012 that it called for Asad’s removal from power. The communiqué actually states that through mutual agreement the two sides would agree on the make up of the transitional government that would include current government representatives, opposition figures as well as other neutral parties.

The Geneva-II meeting has thus seen a lot of hot air and accusations traded between participants without achieving much. The so-called opposition’s foreign sponsors are not interested in a peaceful resolution and they do not have the wherewithal to force Asad from power by military means.

The so-called political opposition is not even in a position to get the armed thugs to allow the release of women and children. What the meeting has exposed is the complete impotence of the political opposition that has no support inside Syria. They were brought to Geneva because their foreign sponsors wanted them there.

The unfortunate people of Syria continue to suffer.

END