DAMASCUS, Jan 18, (Agencies): Syria’s state-owned media on Wednesday accused Qatar of arming and financing opponents of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Qatar’s call to send Arab troops to the country “falls within the framework of the negative role played by Qatar since the start of this crisis... through the financing of armed groups,” the Tishrin newspaper charged.
The Gulf state “can help Syria get out of its crisis... by stopping its financing of armed (groups) and the trafficking of weapons” to insurgents, wrote the daily.
Qatar’s Amir, Sheikh Hamad Ben Khalifa al-Thani, said in an interview aired at the weekend that he backs sending Arab troops to Syria, where the regime has been trying to crush a democracy protest movement with brutal force for the past 10 months.
Arab League Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi said the idea could come up for discussion at the next meeting of the pan-Arab body at its Cairo headquarters on Saturday and Sunday.
The Arab bloc is expected to discuss the future of its widely criticised observer mission to Syria, where the United Nations says the regime’s crackdown on protests has cost more than 5,400 lives since March.
Damascus routinely blames the violence in Syria on “armed groups” and “terrorists” backed by foreign powers pursuing an agenda of regime-change in the country.
Tishrin also accused Qatar of blocking any solution to the crisis in order to “ramp up international pressure” on Damascus.
The daily also accused Qatar of “manipulating information” on Syria through its satellite television channel Al-Jazeera.
The accusations come one day after Damascus flatly rejected Qatar’s proposal to send troops to Syria.
“Syria rejects the statements of officials of Qatar on sending Arab troops to worsen the crisis... and pave the way for foreign intervention,” the foreign ministry said.
“The Syrian people refuse any foreign intervention in any name. They will oppose any attempt to undermine the sovereignty of Syria and the integrity of its territory,” the ministry added.
Syria may let Arab monitors stay on after their mission expires on Thursday, but foes of President Bashar al-Assad say the UN Security Council should step in to halt 10 months of bloodshed.
Arab foreign ministers, due to consider their next step later this week, are split over how to handle Syria, as is the Security Council, which has failed to adopt any position.
US President Barack Obama has again called for a change of government, saying the level of violence in Syria was unacceptable.
Hundreds of killings on both sides have been reported since the Arab League sent observers last month to see whether Damascus was respecting a peace plan it accepted on Nov 2.
“We will continue to consult very closely with Jordan to create the kind of international pressure and environment that encourages the current Syrian regime to step aside,” Obama said after meeting Jordan’s King Abdullah in Washington on Tuesday.
An Arab League source said Damascus would accept a one-month extension of the monitoring mission, but no broadening of its mandate. Critics say the observers have only provided Assad with diplomatic cover and more time to crush his opponents.
The United Nations said on Dec 13 that Assad’s security forces had killed more than 5,000 people since the unrest erupted in mid-March. Nine days later, the government said “armed terrorist groups” had killed 2,000 security personnel.
Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, who has distanced himself from Damascus in recent months, said the Arab monitors had failed to staunch the bloodletting and that Syrians wanted freedom, like other Arabs who have revolted in the past year.
“I am more and more concerned about the possibility that Syria will plunge into more violence and ... maybe civil war,” he told Reuters in an interview.
Michel Kilo, a dissident Syrian writer who spent six years in jail, said the struggle in Syria was at an impasse.
“The regime can’t stop people protesting and the people can’t bring the regime down,” he told France’s Le Figaro daily.
“I believe Assad wants to regionalise the conflict and bring in Iran, (the Lebanese armed Shi’ite group) Hezbollah, Iraq and to threaten Gulf countries with a long war,” Kilo added.
Meanwhile, Muslim Brotherhood has rejected an Iranian proposal to play a leading role in Syria’s government in exchange for President Assad staying in power, one of its leaders told Al-Hayat newspaper.
Iranian intermediaries proposed that the Brotherhood “lead a government (in Syria) on condition we give up our demand to replace Bashar Al-Assad,” the group’s deputy secretary, Mohammed Faruk Tayfur, told the London-based daily.
“It is the responsibility of the international community to protect civilians and establish security corridors,” as French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe stated, said Tayfur.
“We must ask the Arab League to publish a report and transfer it to the (UN) Security Council,” added the Islamist leader, who was speaking from his office in Istanbul.
China on Wednesday defended the Arab League’s widely criticised observer mission to Syria as Russia warned against imposing sanctions on the regime of Assad.
“Since the Arab League observer mission began, the violence in Syria has not completely ended, but the security situation of major areas has improved,” said Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin.
“(This) shows the mission is effective,” he added.
Russia, which insists the Syrian opposition is as much to blame for the violence as the regime, warned against Western calls for punitive measures against Damascus.
“For us, the red line is fairly clearly drawn. We will not support any sanctions,” said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, whose country was a Cold War ally of Damascus and retains a naval base at Tartus on Syria’s Mediterranean coast.
Despite the opposition from Moscow, European Union foreign ministers are set to tighten the bloc’s unilateral sanctions against Damascus next week, diplomats said.
Eight companies and 22 individuals will be added to an existing EU blacklist, the diplomats said.
Lavrov defended Russia’s trade with Syria amid growing controversy over a mysterious shipment that reportedly delivered a supply of arms to Damascus.
Lavrov was asked to address criticism from Washington’s UN Ambassador Susan Rice that followed reports that the shipment brought munitions to President Assad’s forces amid their crackdown on protesters.
“I even heard that Susan Rice was requesting some clarification,” Lavrov told reporters at an annual briefing outlining Russia’s foreign policy views.
“We do not feel we have to explain or justify anything because we are not violating any international agreements or UN Security Council resolutions.
“We are only trading items with Syria that are not banned by international law,” he said without explicitly confirming that the Chariot charter craft was carrying Russian arms.