Syria: Arab League must press for UN-enforced no-fly zone, main opposition leader says |

Syria: Arab League must press for UN-enforced no-fly zone, main opposition leader says |

clipped from article: The Arab League must acknowledge the failure of its observer mission to Syria and press instead for a UN Security Council resolution imposing a no-fly zone over the most vulnerable parts of the country, the main opposition leader said.

Burhan Ghalioun, the president of the Syrian National Council, insisted that any international military operation could be conducted on a much more limited scale than in Libya and need not necessarily be led by Nato.

His comments, during an interview with The Daily Telegraph, came as the Arab League faced a growing backlash for the perceived ineffectiveness of a contingent of monitors it has sent to Syria to observe the regime’s compliance with a regional peace plan.

President Bashar al-Assad’s security forces have been accused of killing hundreds of civilian protesters since the observers arrived, leading to allegations that the mission has achieved nothing except to allow the regime to stall for time.

Pressure on the Arab League to take sterner action is only likely to grow after an international activist group, Avaaz, yesterday alleged that 617 people had been tortured to death in police detention since the uprising against Mr Assad began last March.

Mr Ghalioun, who has made his home in Paris after more than four decades in exile, said he believed the Arab League should still lead the international response to the Syrian crisis, but that the time had come to prove that it was serious in challenging Mr Assad.

“We are leading the Arab League to reaching the position that they have failed in protecting people in Syria,” he said. “But we still want the Arab League to make the calls and take the initiative, so we are pushing them to call for a UN Security Council resolution.”

Arab League ministers are due to meet in Cairo on Saturday to decide whether or not to allow the observer mission to continue. Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani, the Qatari minister who leads the League’s Syria steering committee, acknowledged yesterday that the observer mission had made “mistakes” but there were growing signs that the monitors would be given a reprieve.

Although the League has threatened to refer Syria to the Security Council if Mr Assad is shown not to have ended the violence against his own people, it is far from clear whether it has the collective will to do so.

And while a resolution with Arab backing would make it harder for Russia and China to continue backing Syria at the UN, there are also doubts whether Western powers have the appetite to do anything more than impose sanctions against Damascus.

Mr Ghalioun insisted that the opposition only needed limited military assistance, calling for the creation of a “safe zone” in and around the restive of Idlib, close to the Turkish border where the rebel Free Syrian Army has its headquarters.

Although such a haven would require protection from the skies, a mission on the scale of Libya need not be undertaken, he claimed.

“We don’t have to destroy all the Syrian airforce,” he said. “You only need to secure a specific zone and this can be done without damaging the whole defences of the country.

“We believe that a safe zone will encourage battalions and armies of the regime to defect and take the side of the revolution. This would topple the balance of power in the favour of the revolution.” [read more at link]