LGF Pages - Sarkozy: Syria's Assad must step down

LGF Pages - Sarkozy: Syria's Assad must step down

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French President Nicolas Sarkozy accused Syrian leader Bashar Assad of “barbarous repression” Tuesday and demanded that he step down, saying the regime is massacring its own people.

Sarkozy said Syrians should be allowed to determine their own future.

“The massacres being committed by the Syrian regime rightly arouse disgust and revolt in the Arab world, in France, in Europe and everywhere in the world,” Sarkozy said during a New Year’s address at a Navy air base in Lanveoc-Poulmic, France.

“The Syrian president must leave power,” he told members of the French military.

The U.N.’s last estimate, announced several weeks ago, estimated that more than 5,000 people have been killed in the government’s military crackdown on the revolt that erupted in mid-March, inspired by uprisings across the Arab world. But since that report, activists say hundreds more have been killed.

The violence has drawn broad international condemnation and sanctions, but Assad remains defiant. The Arab League sent in about 100 observers a week ago to verify Syria’s compliance with the organization’s plan that requires the regime to remove security forces and heavy weapons from city streets, start talks with opposition leaders and free political prisoners. Syria agreed to the plan, intended to halt the crackdown completely, on Dec. 19.

The Local Coordination Committees, an umbrella group of activists, put the death toll at more than 390 people since Dec. 21.

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