JEDDAH: The Syrian regime’s relentless shelling and air raids show that it has no respect for human life or the rules of war, opposition spokesman Yahya Al-Aridi told Arab News on Wednesday.
The regime is amassing elite forces for a major assault on an army base on the outskirts of Damascus, in which at least 200 troops are believed to be besieged by rebels, Reuters reported.
Since Sunday, opposition fighters have expanded their control of parts of the base in Harasta. They are well entrenched, and the trapped troops might be used as bargaining chips “if they remain alive,” Al-Aridi said.
The likely outcome of the showdown is unclear, “but the regime can claim no victory or control, as it has been saying,” he added. The opposition Free Syrian Army (FSA) “is the major power” besieging the base, he said.
In four days of heavy airstrikes, 38 civilians have been killed and at least 147 people injured. Five civilians were killed on Tuesday. The regime and its supporters “don’t care about a political solution,” Al-Aridi said.
Bahia Mardini, a UK-based Syrian journalist and human rights activist, told Arab News: “We believe passionately in the elimination of terrorism and the defeat of all terrorist groups in Syria — whatever name they go by — but we must spare civilian lives.”
She added: “The regime and its Russian allies mustn’t be allowed to use terrorism as an excuse to kill civilians and maintain their deadly siege.” Despite the regime’s scorched-earth policy, Syrians continue to reject violence, Mardini said.
She appealed to the six new members of the UN Security Council “to stand up to the regime and ask its allies to pressure it so that together we can prevent the killing of Syrian civilians.”
Syrian regime has no respect for human life, says opposition
Syrian regime has no respect for human life, says opposition
Turkiye’s foreign minister says the US and Iran showing flexibility on nuclear deal, FT reports
- Hakan Fidan: “It is positive that the Americans appear willing to tolerate Iranian enrichment within clearly set boundaries”
- Washington has until now demanded Iran relinquish its stockpile of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent fissile purity
The United States and Iran are showing flexibility on a nuclear deal, with Washington appearing “willing” to tolerate some nuclear enrichment, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told the Financial Times in an interview published Thursday.
“It is positive that the Americans appear willing to tolerate Iranian enrichment within clearly set boundaries,” Fidan, who has been involved in talks with both Washington and Tehran, told the FT.
“The Iranians now recognize that they need to reach a deal with the Americans, and the Americans understand that the Iranians have certain limits. It’s pointless to try to force them.”
Washington has until now demanded Iran relinquish its stockpile of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent fissile purity, a small step away from the 90 percent that is considered weapons grade.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has said Iran would continue to demand the lifting of financial sanctions and insist on its nuclear rights including enrichment.
Fidan told the FT he believed Tehran “genuinely wants to reach a real agreement” and would accept restrictions on enrichment levels and a strict inspection regime, as it did in the 2015 agreement with the US and others. US and Iranian diplomats held talks through Omani mediators in Oman last week in an effort to revive diplomacy, after President Donald Trump positioned a naval flotilla in the region, raising fears of new military action. Trump on Tuesday said he was considering sending a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East, even as Washington and Tehran prepared to resume negotiations.
The Turkish foreign minister, however, cautioned that broadening the Iran-US talks to ballistic missiles would bring “nothing but another war.”
The US State Department and the White House did not respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours.
