Syrian opposition groups demand Assad's departure
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E-mail Xinhua, July 4, 2012
Syrian opposition groups on Tuesday reached agreement in demanding the departure of President Bashar al-Assad and hammering out a "national pledge" and a transition "road map" in Cairo after squabbles at a two-day conference sponsored by the Arab League (AL).
At the same time, clashes between government forces and armed groups continued in Syria.
More than 200 opposition figures who attended the meeting insisted that a political solution to the 16-month-old crisis should start with the fall of the al-Assad government.
"All the attendees of the conference agreed that the political solution has to start by the fall of the regime represented in Bashar al-Assad and the icons of his power and calls for an immediate halt of violence committed by the Syrian regime," said a final statement read by Syrian opposition leader Kamal al-Labuany.
They agreed on the "importance of preserving civil peace and national unity," al-Labuany said.
They also called for the trial of those involved in the killing of civilians, an immediate end to violence, the release of detainees and the withdrawal of troops from urban areas.
Participants had squabbled on the wording of the two documents, which they expected to serve as a blueprint of the future state and guide the country through a transitional period.
A Syrian Kurdish group once quit the meeting, citing that "the conference rejected an item that says the Kurdish people must be recognized." But it returned to the table after the AL's mediation.
"This is unfair and we will no longer accept to be marginalized," Abdel Aziz Othman of the National Kurdish Council said.
The meeting, scheduled to be ended at noon on Tuesday, was prolonged until midnight because of differences among the opposition groups. It even saw women weeping and men fistfighting for a time.
"They are so different, chaotic and hate each other," an official from the AL said of the opposition groups.
Participants of the conference include major opposition groups, the Turkey-based Syrian National Council and the domestic Syrian National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change, and foreign ministers of Egypt, Kuwait, Iraq and Turkey, as well as the UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan.
In Syria, the daily grind of violence continued Tuesday.
Government forces clashed with armed opposition fighters in the central province of Homs and some other areas, killing an unspecified number of armed men, state-run SANA news agency said.
The authorities have stormed hideouts of armed men and confiscated large quantities of weapons, said the agency.
Meanwhile, the oppositional activists' network Local Coordination Committees reported shelling from the Syrian forces on opposition strongholds, mainly in areas of the southern province of Daraa, the cradle of the anti-government movement in Syria.
It said at least 56 people were killed Tuesday nationwide.
Another opposition network, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said more than 50 people were killed Tuesday in several areas, including suburbs of the capital Damascus, northern Aleppo, eastern Deir al-Zour, and central Homs, and 18 of them were allegedly members of the Syrian army and security forces.
The opposition's account could not be independently confirmed.
The Syrian forces and the armed opposition on ground have been at each other's throats recently, with armed fighters undertaking guerrilla-style attacks on army and security bases.
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