Syrian opposition ask world's help to stop Assad

Members of the Syrian opposition meeting in Istanbul on Tuesday pleaded for international help to persuade President Bashar Assad to halt a brutal crackdown on a popular revolt.

"Our friends in the West, in Turkey, in the Arab world, if they want to help us, then they can do that by... putting the clearest possible pressure on the Syrian regime to stop targeting civilians," Anas Abdah, the British-based chairman of the Movement for Justice and Development, told Reuters.

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Abdah was speaking on the sidelines of a gathering of opposition and rights groups organized by Turkish non-government organizations to highlight the Syrian people's plight.

"It looks like Bashar al-Assad has taken a strategic decision to crush a non-violent movement in Syria by ordering his brother Maher al-Assad... to go and storm Deraa city," Abdah said.

Funeral for victims killed by Syrian security forces (Photo: AFP) 

Double standard?

Meanwhile, both the US and British defense chiefs dismissed the notion that because the international community responded to unrest in Libya with military force, the same should be done in Syria.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates met Tuesday with his British counterpart Liam Fox, after which Fox said that the world's response to popular revolts across the Middle East and North Africa "must be tailored to the circumstances of each case."

In a joint appearance with Fox at the Pentagon, Gates made a similar point, noting that before the military campaign in Libya was launched, there was a diplomatic process that resulted in calls for action by the Arab League, the Gulf Cooperation Council and the United Nations.

Other Washington officials said that |at this time" the United States still prefers to exhaust diplomacy and possible sanctions against Syria.

"Our focus is... with respect to options in Syria, in the diplomatic and financial space at the moment," said Jacob Sullivan, director for strategic policy and a close advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"At the moment, we're not actively considering shutting down our embassy in Syria," said Sullivan. "We believe that our diplomatic lines of communication there offer an opportunity to communicate directly with the Syrian government in ways that we would like to continue to do."

Sullivan reiterated that the United States condemns the repression in Syria, saying the actions taken by Assad "are totally unacceptable" and "completely inconsistent" with those of a responsible leader.

The US, he concluded, "Will evaluate the effectiveness and benefits of the tools at our disposal," before making any further decisions.

As for the situation in Libya, Gates said that there had been some "momentum" in the Libyan conflict in recent days, but stressed that NATO forces were not targeting Moamar Gaddafi specifically.

The comments come after Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the coalition of exceeding its UN mandate to protect civilians, saying attacks on Gaddafi's palaces indicate the aim was to kill the Libyan leader.

Putin accused the nations taking part in the Nato-led operation of straying from the UN mandate to enforce a no-fly zone and protect civilians.

AP, AFP and Reuters contributed to this report  

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