Dubai: Saudi Foreign minister's statement that Syrians have the right to defend themselves reflects Riyadh's firm stand over bloody developments in the country, analysts said.
However, they disagree whether the statement could be interpreted to include arming the Syrian opposition.
At a news press conference on Sunday, Prince Saud Al Faisal said Syrians have the right to take up arms to defend themselves against a regime that is "imposing itself by force".
"Is there something greater than the right to defend oneself and to defend human rights?" he asked, adding that the Syrian people want to defend themselves. "The regime is not wanted by the people," he said.
"The regime is insisting on imposing itself by force on the Syrian people," Al Faisal said, adding that while the international efforts to reach a ceasefire in Syria are welcomed, they "have failed to stop the massacres."
‘Taking wrong path'
"Prince Saud Al Faisal has changed his tone (on Syria) after (Saudi Arabia) King Abdullah changed his tone," over developments in Syria, said Wahid Hamzah Hashim, political science professor at Jeddah-based King Abdul Aziz University.
The professor revealed that King Abdullah has contacted Syrian president Bashar Al Assad three times since the beginning of the Syria crisis more than a year, and "warned him that he is taking the wrong path."
However, "it became obvious that Al Assad's refusal ‘to stop shedding the blood of the Syrian people' has forced King Abdullah to take that decision," Hashim told Gulf News in a telephone interview. He added the Saudi king takes his political steps "according to the kingdom's strategic interests,".
Disagreement
Hashim said Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries should arm the Syrian opposition and officially acknowledge the Syrian transitional council formed by the opposition. Saudi statements indicate these lines, he noted.
However, Turki Al Sudairi, the Editor-in-Chief of the Arabic language newspaper Al Riyadh, gave a different interpretation.
"I don't see it as a call to arm the opposition," he told Gulf News about Al Faisal's statement.
