(State Department) At a special briefing in Istanbul on Sunday, a senior U.S. State Department official said: "We firmly believe that extremism within the ranks of those trying to bring down Assad, that extremism is very unhelpful in terms of finding a sustainable political solution in Syria, which is why we put them on our terrorism list, and it's why we argue now that the opposition coalition needs to clearly reject and demarcate itself from extremists in the Syrian opposition." "We have to help the moderates, people like [Chief of Staff of the Free Syrian Army] Salim Idris, who very clearly in the meeting last night said: We accept the importance of finding a political solution. We accept the importance of providing safety to all the minorities that are afraid of what would happen post-Assad. We accept that we must be held to the standards of universal human rights."
2013-04-22 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive