No revenge after toppling regime, says Al Khatib

Dubai: After marathon talks in Doha, the Syrian opposition has finally decided to form a new, representative body. The 63 representatives of the newly formed Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces (SNCORF), who met in Doha on Monday night, elected four national figures to lead the opposition to topple the Bashar Al Assad regime.

The elected leaders, including Muath Al Khatib, a Muslim scholar by practice and geological engineer by qualification, Riad Saif, former parliament member, and Suheir Al Atassi, a 37 year-old activist who was imprisoned three times by the regime, will lead the coalition, which was carefully selected to represent different revolutionary and opposition forces inside Syria and in exile.

Al Khatib, the president of the new group who became popular through his two-year advocacy of a non-violent struggle against the regime, told Gulf News that the peaceful revolution against the “wild” regime has been militarised to defend people against the unprecedented brutality of Al Assad and his regime.

“We will continue to lead a peaceful revolution. We will not take revenge on anyone after achieving the unified goal of dismantling the criminal apparatus of the regime,” he said.

Al Khatib promised that the new coalition will be dissolved after toppling Al Assad to allow Syrians to form their own constitution and elect their freely-chosen leaders to start building the devastated country.

In a phone interview with Gulf News, Dr Jalal Khanji, head of the locally elected revolutionary council of the northern city of Aleppo, who was a prisoner of conscious from 1980 till 1992 under the Hafez Al Assad regime, said 70 per cent of Aleppo had been liberated in the past three months and expected it to be fully liberated in weeks’ time.

Leading role for Hijab

Sources told Gulf News that Dr Riyad Hijab, former Syrian prime minister, who defected from the regime two months ago, would be member no 63 in the coalition and might take up a leading role in the proposed government.

“We are looking to host the new Syrian government in Aleppo. The coalition will elect the government once it gains international recognition as the sole representative of the Syrian people,” he said.

SNCORF was formed to ensure the representation of different Syrian revolutionary groups which the 450-member Syrian National Council (SNC) failed to achieve since its formation in August 2011.

The coalition is formed of 63 representatives, out of whom 23 are from the SNC, 14 from local revolutionary authorities in 14 Syrian provinces, three represent Kurdish movements and three from the Turkoman community while eight were selected from among prominent national figures. Dr Sadeq Jalal Al Azem, representative of Syrian Literature and Writers’ Association, and Dr Mohammad Al Sabooni of the Muslim Scholars’ Association, are among them.

Syrian businessmen were represented by Mustafa Al Sabbagh who was elected as secretary general of the coalition, in addition to nine others representing the revolutionary and coordination groups inside Syria. One representing defectors from the regime will be named later.