Britain in secret talks with Syrian rebels

[alp227]

Source: The Independent

Britain has formally opened talks with the Syrian opposition movement as international pressure continues to mount against the beleaguered regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Frances Guy, a former ambassador to Lebanon, met members of the exiled opposition in Paris yesterday. The Foreign Secretary, William Hague, is to meet members of the Syrian opposition in London next week when they will also hold talks with senior officials in Downing Street.

Although the UK, along with other Western states like France – which appealed to the United Nations yesterday to impose tougher sanctions – has been in informal contact with the opposition for the last three months, the progression of the working relationship opens up the prospect of the rebels eventually being recognised as the country's representatives and supplanting the Assad regime.

The West's Libyan mission started in a similar fashion with the country's revolutionaries, but senior diplomatic sources warned against drawing parallels. "This is not about recognition of them as the government – that is not the case," said a senior diplomatic source. "The difference with the Libyan situation was that the Libyan National Transitional Council controlled swathes of the country. We are asking the Syrian opposition to present a coherent set of policies and organise themselves." The Syrian National Council and the National Co-ordination Committee for Democratic Change are among the groups whose leaders have been involved in the talks.

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/britain-in-secret-talks-with-syrian-rebels-6264592.html

[teddy51]

1. So, where the hell are these countries with Right Wing Governments heading

anyway? The UK, France, and others getting involved with countries like Syria. The question has to be why are they so involved?

[MannyGoldstein]

2. Syria has much less oil than Libya

Unlikely that the West will intervene.

[bhikkhu]

5. We'll see...it will demonstrate something, one way or another

I think so far it shows that a non-oil producing dictator can murder a whole lot more of his people than what got Gadhafi ousted...but it is hard to compare one region to another.

What I can't fathom is how rotten Assad thinks he can be; at that level, these dictators-for-life must live in their own little bubble-world, and have no idea or care what they do or how they appear to the rest of the world.

[MADem]

3. What a bullshit headine...some "secret" if they are "formal talks!"

Amazing amount of detail for a "secret" undertaking, too.

It's apparently only a secret to those who haven't read the paper or watched the news.

Remind me not to tell Britain that I've hidden all of my valuables in a Quality Street tin in the back cupboard!

[dipsydoodle]

7. lol

"hidden in the Quality Street tin."

[msongs]

4. it they are secret how come everyone knows about them lol nt

[Charronxyz]

6. Well in that case...

Maybe foreign governments should open talks with OWS, and see what can be done about the repression in the USA and propose regime change.

[Ghost Dog]

8. Quickly, before it is infiltrated and coopted, OWS should

organize a Constitutional Conference.