France Urges Creation of Interim Syrian Government, Pledging Recognition
Youssef Boudlal/Reuters
Smoke rose over the Syrian
city of Aleppo on Monday after missiles from a fighter jet hit gas
tankers in the Bab al-Nayrab district.
By STEVEN ERLANGER
Published: August 27, 2012
PARIS — France will recognize a provisional Syrian government as soon as it has been formed, President François Hollande said on Monday, urging Syria’s fractured political opposition to establish one as soon as possible.
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Times Topic: Syria
Pool photo by Etienne Laurent
President François Hollande of France spoke in Paris.
Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
An image from a video purporting to show a government
helicopter crash in Damascus, that rebels claimed responsibility for on
Monday.
Mr. Hollande also said that France, like the United States and Britain,
would view any use of chemical weapons by President Bashar al-Assad of
Syria as a legitimate justification for military intervention, even
without a United Nations Security Council resolution.
“With our partners we remain very vigilant regarding preventing the use
of chemical weapons, which for the international community would be a
legitimate reason for direct intervention,” Mr. Hollande said during an
annual foreign policy speech to French ambassadors, his first as
president.
The statements by Mr. Hollande represented the most forceful attempt by
the group of Western nations calling for Mr. Assad’s ouster to nudge
Syria’s marginalized and often squabbling opposition groupings toward
unity.
Despite repeated attempts, those groups, which include many exiled
figures, have failed to agree on a common approach to ending Mr. Assad’s
rule, or to gain credibility, especially with Syrians inside the
country. As the violence reaches deadlier peaks, attention has shifted
to armed rebel groups, which have become the most prominent face of a
rebellion that started almost 18 months ago with street protests.
“France asks the Syrian opposition to form a provisional government —
inclusive and representative — that can become the legitimate
representative of the new Syria,” Mr. Hollande said. “We are including
our Arab partners to accelerate this step,” he said, adding: “France
will recognize the provisional government of Syria once it is formed.”
The French leader also reiterated a warning made by President Obama a
week ago, seconded a few days later by Prime Minister David Cameron of
Britain, that military intervention could be justified if the Syrian
government used unconventional weapons or moved them in a threatening
fashion. Syria has said that it would use such weapons only in the event
of an external attack.
Mr. Hollande also confirmed that France was working with other countries
on the possibility of establishing “buffer zones” inside Syria,
presumably if the opposition forces can create them. The zones, formally
to protect refugees, were an idea floated by Turkey, which has resisted
suggestions that it use its own forces to invade Syria and create such
zones for the Free Syrian Army and other rebels.
The French defense minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, has already spoken of
possible “no-fly zones” over Syrian territory, from the Turkish border
to Aleppo, to protect refugees, but he has provided no further details.
He said the idea originated with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham
Clinton and was being studied.
Mr. Hollande also said that France continued to press the Security
Council for a new, more far-reaching resolution on Syria and criticized
Russia and China for using their vetoes to protect Mr. Assad. He said
that their “attitude is weakening our capacity to ensure the United
Nations Charter is respected.”
His comments came as some of the war’s deadliest violence remained
focused on the outskirts of Damascus. In Daraya, southwest of the
capital, opposition activists have accused the government of killing
hundreds of people over the last week.
In recent days, residents have spoken of a brutal “cleansing” operation
by the military, deploying helicopters, heavy artillery and tanks to
dislodge a large contingent of rebel fighters who had made Daraya a
stronghold. Mass burials were held on Sunday for victims, who included
women and children.
Refugees from Daraya who reached Lebanon on Monday spoke of bodies lying
on residential streets and town squares, and a city choked by the smell
of death. A 17-year-old refugee who fled with her family said that many
of the dead were rebel fighters, but many other victims, like her
uncle, who she claimed had no ties to the rebels, were civilians seized
by government troops who later turned up dead, she said.
Her uncle, a 40-year-old bus driver, was taken by soldiers last Monday
as he walked neighbors to a bomb shelter, she said. The next day, his
body was found with knife and bullet wounds. His family, too frightened
to attend his funeral, found a picture of his corpse on the Internet.
Now his niece keeps the picture on her cellphone.
Also on Monday, Syrian antigovernment fighters said they had brought
down a government helicopter during fighting in the eastern suburbs of
Damascus. Syrian state television confirmed that a helicopter had
crashed in the neighborhood of Qaboun, without detailing the cause.
In an unverified video
on the Internet on Monday purporting to show the crash, flames appear
around a falling helicopter before it bursts into a fireball and
plummets. Another video appeared to show charred wreckage.
Residents and activists said that the helicopter had been used in a
government assault on rebel fighters in Jobar and other eastern suburbs
of Damascus. After the helicopter went down on Monday, activists said
that government forces had started shelling parts of Qaboun’s old city,
near the crash site. By Monday afternoon, hundreds of soldiers and
government security agents had surrounded the area.
On the Syrian border with Turkey, a backup of Syrians trying to flee
appeared to be growing quickly, with nearly 10,000 awaiting permission
to cross, a Turkish government official reported. “There are people
sleeping literally on the roadsides,” said the official, who spoke on
condition of anonymity.
Turkey has already taken in more than 80,000 Syrians who have registered
with the United Nations refugee agency. Turkey has built nine camps to
accommodate them and is scrambling to construct six more, while
temporarily housing 19,000 Syrians in student hostels until the new
camps are completed.
The Turks have said they are prepared to accommodate a maximum of
100,000 Syrians, and it remains unclear what the Turkish government will
do when that limit is reached.
The number of Syrians who have fled to Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon
has surged in recent weeks and now exceeds 200,000, outpacing estimates
by international relief agencies.
In a further sign of stress in the relief effort, Unicef issued an
urgent appeal on Monday for additional funds to meet needs at the
Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan near the Syrian border. At least half
the population of the camp’s 17,000 people are children.
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