Arab and Western states recognised the National Coalition as the sole representative of Syrians yesterday, as the Opposition bloc urged the US to review its blacklisting of jihadist rebels.
The declaration issued at a Friends of Syria meeting in Morocco coincided with battlefield gains by jihadists fighting President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, and a rapidly deteriorating refugee situation as winter sets in.
“Today, full recognition is given to the National Coalition as the sole representative of the Syrian people,” Moroccan Foreign Minister Saad Eddine El Othmani told a news conference after the meeting his government hosted in the southern city of Marrakesh.
The talks on the 21-month conflict rocking Syria brought together representatives from 114 countries, including about 60 ministers, the Syrian Opposition and international organisations.
They came a day after US President Barack Obama endorsed the National Coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, following a similar move by the EU.
Russia, the Assad regime’s most powerful ally, expressed surprise, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov saying “the United States has decided to place all its bets on an armed victory of the National Coalition”.
In its communique, Friends of Syria again called on Assad to stand down, and stressed his regime would not escape punishment for violations of international law.
It also warned Damascus against using chemical weapons, saying this “would draw a serious response from the international community”. British Foreign Secretary William Hague described the growing recognition of the National Coalition as “real progress”.
“Then the important thing is to channel more assistance through them – in our case... non-lethal assistance... and then of course we need more humanitarian aid.”
Those at the meeting also called for unimpeded access for humanitarian groups inside Syria. Under pressure to unite, the Syrian Opposition agreed in Doha on November 11 to establish the coalition and group the various rebel forces under a supreme military council.
But jihadist rebels in Aleppo, a key front line in northern Syria, rejected the agreement, saying they want an Islamic state.
Among them was al-Nusra Front, which the US blacklisted on Tuesday as a “terrorist” organisation, citing its links to al-Qaeda in Iraq. National Coalition chief Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib called on Washington to “re-examine” the move. “We can have ideological and political differences with certain parties, but the revolutionaries all share the same goal: to overthrow (Assad’s) criminal regime.”
Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, who led the US delegation to the talks, said: “We have extended an invitation to Moaz al-Khatib and the Coalition leadership to visit Washington at the earliest opportunity.”
But he defended the terror blacklisting.
“Al-Nusra, as the President made clear, is little more than a front for al-Qaeda in Iraq, and all of us have seen what al-Qaeda in Iraq tried to do to threaten the social fabric of Iraq,” Burns said. “That is not a future that the vast majority of Syrians want to see.”
Coalition spokesman Yaser Tabbara underlined hopes the Marrakesh meeting would help alleviate a mounting humanitarian crisis and support the needs of “liberated” areas, in terms of salaries and services, which the group estimates at nearly €382 million per month.