Syria FM at Peace Talks Calls Opposition 'Traitors'
إقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربية
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem dubbed the country's opposition "traitors" and foreign "agents" as a peace conference opened in Switzerland on Wednesday.
"They claim to represent the Syrian people. If you want to speak in the name of the Syrian people, you should not be traitors to the Syrian people, agents in the pay of enemies of the Syrian people," Muallem said in a strongly-worded speech as the meeting got under way in the lakeside city of Montreux.
He fired a broadside at the reform-shy Gulf monarchies which back the revolt against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, which began after a crackdown on peaceful Arab Spring-inspired protests in 2011 and has morphed into a sectarian war.
"It is regrettable to me and to the people of Syria that representatives of states in this room are sitting with us today, while blood is on their hands -- countries that have sent weapons ... encouraged and financed terrorism," Muallem said.
"They have not looked at their own glass houses before throwing stones," he said.
"The mask has fallen and we can see the real face of what they want -- to destabilize Syria .. by exporting terrorism -- to hide their barbaric behavior," he thundered.
Syria slams the role of foreign Sunni Islamist fighters who have flocked to the war-torn country -- though Assad is backed by Shiite Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah -- and says it is locked in a "war on terror".
"Who told you that Syria wants to go back 1,000 years," he said, warning against extreme Islamism.
"It will not stop in Syria," he said.
He singled out Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for backing the opposition.
"All of this would not have happened if it had not been for Erdogan -- they did not know that magic would turn against the magician one day -- terrorism has no religion," he said.
Muallem also rebuked U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who told the conference there would be no place for Assad in a future government.
"No one in the world has the right to confer or withdraw the legitimacy of a president, a constitution or a law, except for the Syrians themselves," Muallem said.
Muallem also locked horns with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the conference chairman, who had asked delegations not to trade barbs and to respect time limits imposed on all speeches.
22 January 2014, 12:14
715
And we should call the regime and its supporters by their true colors: Murderers and monsters.
22 January 2014, 13:18
710
what's your take on Michele Obama's birthday bash and Beyonce's lavish attendance ?
22 January 2014, 15:07
77
Was I addressing you @mowaten? Why are you intent on harassing me? why?why? I don't deserve this constant bashing and phsycological pressure from you and your hizb? Are you also doing surveillance on me?
22 January 2014, 14:28
67
Yes patriot over the edge, he represent a system whos president is elected with more than 98% of votes for decades..
Where can u find more democratic and legitimate that that?...
Plus one southern.. As always very nice analysis... Bravo
22 January 2014, 14:30
79
those are the traitors, the war criminals :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huh5oFdrqYI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HkxIVXN9Ds
22 January 2014, 15:17
68
Southern... if you like Syria so much, do us a favor... go there!
22 January 2014, 16:07
66
@Southern: Could you please repeat what you just said, only this time in English please?
22 January 2014, 16:30
23
Geneva II is premature. As long as the antagonists have the capacity to wage war, they will not wage peace. This is not a lawsuit where each side mediates a compromise solution so as to save themselves the time and expense of a trial.
This is a game of political and literal survival. No cost is too high for either side. So, until one side or both sides completely exhaust the capacity to determine the issue on the battle field, Geneva II will be for blow hards like Moualaam to bloviate in the mirror thinking he is casting accusations against the other side, and vice versa.
22 January 2014, 16:31
67
FT... Ta gueule! You can shov KSA up yours! But there is no space left since you already have Iran & Syria...
22 January 2014, 16:32
22
when actually he is describing himself and the means and manner in which he and his partisan side have conducted themselves toward the other.
22 January 2014, 17:13
55
this conference is a waste of time. arm the opposition properly.
22 January 2014, 18:10
44
a regime that bombs its own citizens, bombs hospitals commits various crimes and he dare call the opposition traitors? LOL
and we still have M8ers here to praise him....
22 January 2014, 20:56
15
When I was growing up in Lebanon in the streets of Beirut and its beautiful mountains, I never thought that the Lebanese were the kind of people "when they walked under a flock of birds would be surprised when the birds shit on their heads". Don't you people get it. What Walid Muallem is saying arguably can be given legitimacy if his government's hands weren't so dirty, including Syria's associations with Iran and H.A. even though when you ask those who support H.A. they only focus on their cause, most likely legitimate, and seem to disregard their actions which puts them under the same umbrella with the rest of the Muslim extremist.
