SNC new leader says ‘disappointed with foreign backers’

PanARMENIAN.Net - The newly elected leader of Syria's main opposition bloc said in an interview Saturday that the international community should support those trying to topple President Bashar Assad's regime without any conditions and not link aid to an overhaul of the opposition leadership, The Associated Press reports.

George Sabra, head of the Syrian National Council, said he and other opposition figures are disappointed with foreign backers.

"Unfortunately, we get nothing from them, except some statements, some encouragement" while Assad's allies "give the regime everything," Sabra told the AP on the sidelines of a weeklong SNC conference in the Qatari capital of Doha.

He said the Syrian opposition needs hundreds of millions of dollars in aid and weapons to defeat regime forces.

Sabra, 65, was heading an SNC delegation Saturday in talks with rival opposition groups on forging a new, broader opposition leadership group — an idea promoted by Western and Arab backers of those trying to oust Assad.

The SNC has been reluctant to join such a group, fearing it would lose influence within a larger platform. Senior SNC figures suggested Saturday's meeting would be the start of several days of negotiations over the size and mission of such a group. They said they are willing to join a larger group, but that the details need to be worked out carefully.

In the interview, Sabra acknowledged that some of the criticism of the SNC was justified, but said that this should not serve as an excuse to hold up international aid.

"Don't hang (your) delay to provide Syrians what they need, what they want, on the neck of the opposition," he said, in a message to the international community.

"Let's say, we have our responsibility, no doubt about that, and we will carry this responsibility, but we need from the international community to carry their responsibility also," he said.