President Bashar al-Assad renewed a pledge of reforms yesterday, as Syria threatened retaliation if countries recognise an opposition bloc increasingly active on the international scene.
“Syria is taking steps focused on two main fronts – political reform and the dismantling of armed groups” seeking to destabilise the country, Mr Assad told the visiting Cuban and Venezuelan foreign ministers.
The embattled President said “the Syrian people had welcomed the reforms but that foreign attacks intensified just as the situation in the country began to make progress”.
He accused Western powers of having “little interest in reform”, seeking instead to “push Syria to pay the price for its stances against foreign schemes hatched outside the region”.
“Despite everything, a process of reform is under way,” he assured them.
Activists said security forces Sunday killed at least three mourners at a Damascus funeral, a day after two people were killed at the funeral of Kurdish activist Meshaal Tamo, a murdered member of the new Syrian National Council (SNC).
The foreign ministers of Venezuela and Cuba headed a delegation of leftist Latin American countries – including Ecuador, Nicaragua and Bolivia – that travelled to Syria to “show support”.
The delegates denounced the “political and media campaign being waged against Syria”, state news agency SANA said.
The eight-member Latin American bloc’s talks aim to denounce “political destabilisation attempts by the United States and its allies”, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said before the visit.
“We reject all forms of interventionism that the empire is trying to apply as it did in Libya for a violent process of regime change.”
Washington has renewed its calls for Mr Assad to step down immediately amid escalating violence against anti-regime protesters that the United Nations says has left nearly 3,000 people dead.
Turkey, meanwhile, has kept constant pressure on Damascus by hosting gatherings of Syrian dissidents and repeatedly calling on Mr Assad’s regime to introduce reforms.
Foreign Minister Walid Muallem warned that Damascus will retaliate against any state which recognises the SNC, formed in Istanbul in late August and uniting the key groups opposed to Mr Assad’s rule.
“We will take significant measures against any country that recognises this illegitimate council,” Mr Muallem told a news conference, as the SNC lobbied for support in Cairo where the Arab League is based.