February 24, 2012

(ANSAmed) - BEIRUT - The ''friends'' of Syria meeting in Tunis have demonstrated the extent of their impotence in tackling the violence taking place in the country, which has seen more than seventy people killed today, anti-regime activists say. Meanwhile the Red Cross is engaged in a very difficult negotiation in Homs in order to evacuate journalists to Lebanon, who have been wounded in the heavily bombarded Bab Amro area over recent days. The much-awaited meeting in Tunisia, which has seen more than 50 representatives from nations and international organisations, started in the afternoon. This followed an incident in which hundreds of loyalists of the Assad regime attempted to force entry into the hotel where the meeting was being held in a conference room. The Syrian authorities had labeled the Tunis meeting ''one of the enemies and not of the friends'' of Syria. Yet another Friday of protest in the main Syrian cities has seen thousands of people taking to the streets once more, chanting the slogan ''Homs, we are rising up for you'' in reference to the suffering undergone over the past three weeks by the approx. 30,000 inhabitants of the Bab Amro area of Syria's third largest city.

The bombardment of Homs was halted temporarily but that of the regions of Hama and Idlib saw no let-up today with repressions reaching a high point. This was the background against which today's Tunis conference has taken place. The draft of the final document speaks of ''exercising further pressure'' to force Assad to step down. This is a reference to the Arab League plan of autumn last year, which includes a proposal that presidential powers be assumed by the present deputy leader of the country, Faruq al Sharaa, a loyal aide to Assad. On the humanitarian level, the 'friends of Syria' have set a ''48-hour ultimatum'' to Damascus to provide help to civilians who have been injured in the violence. The draft document does not specify the precise nature of the consequences for the Syrian regime should the ultimatum not be kept. Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister, al Faysal, left the conference room in disgust, Saudi TV channel al Arabiya reports, ''as a mark of protest at the meeting's inefficacy''. Riyadh is in the forefront of those forces pressing for the arming of the deserters from Syria's army. Qatar returned to the notion of creating an ''Arab force'', without specifying whether this should be military or civil in nature. The force should be ''tasked with creating and protecting humanitarian corridors''.

The United States went no further than the statement, from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, that if Assad refuses humanitarian aid for his people, his hands will be even more ''blood-soaked''. Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu invited all present to reconvene in Istanbul in three weeks' time for a new meeting of the 'Friends of Syria' speaking of ''ways of strengthening the weapons embargo'' on the regime, without describing what these were. Burhan Ghalioun, the leader of the Syrian National Council, the main platform for the opposition abroad, expressed his disappointment at the outcomes of the Tunis meeting. (ANSAmed).

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