Syrian SNC complains US failure to keep aid promise
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E-mail Xinhua, August 17, 2012
The United States has not kept its promises of granting humanitarian aid to Syrian National Council (SNC), Syrian opposition leader said on Thursday.
Abdulbaset Sieda, President of SNC said in his office in Istanbul that so far the SNC hasn't received any support except some promises from the United States after the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to Istanbul.
Hillary Clinton announced that the United States will provide an additional 5.5 million U.S. dollars humanitarian aid to the Syrian people. The money will bring the total U.S. aid to 82 million dollars since the crisis began 17 months ago.
As for establishing the no-fly zone inside Syria, Sieda said," We are demanding no-fly zone, but what we receive from the international society is contradictory signal."
"If the international society leaves Syria alone, the catastrophe will spread to the regional countries such as Iran, Iraq and Turkey and cause riots in the whole area," he added.
"Our needs are very clear. Everyday we have almost 200 people dead. The Free Syria Army need arms, military equipment and salary, " he said.
Replacing Burhan Ghailioun as the SNC president in June 2012, Sieda said that trying hard to unite the opposition groups and arranging for better cooperation are top of his agenda. "The priority of my work is to rearrange the internal structure of SNC. We communicate with different groups of opposition for better cooperation," he made it clear.
"The biggest challenge for us is the massive military operation carried out by the Assad government. There are over 2 million Syrian people who are displaced within Syria. We are trying our best to help people within Syria. But our ability is limited compared to the increasing needs of the people," he said.
Referring to the differences among opposition groups, he said, "SNC represents over 60 percent of the opposition political powers. There are still some opposition groups outside of the SNC, and we are trying to include them and engage in cooperation with them."
"The differences are not big. We all agreed on the main framework. We all want to end this old regime and build a new Syria," he added.
"The opposition forces are like a triangle consisting of three parts -- the political part represented by SNC, the defense part represented by the Free Syria Army and the revolutionary part represented by various revolutionary movements on the ground. Outside the triangle we have other forces with which we are in cooperation. The differences between different opposition groups are minor," he explained.
The opposition leader said he looks forward to a new era, " Syria should be a country that no individual should fear for the future. We are going to learn from countries such as Iraq and avoid mistakes. This vision is not to satisfy any Western country. It is based on the natural needs of the Syrian people," he emphasized.
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