“I don’t see any hope in Geneva II to be held on 22nd of the next month, to succeed in bringing about any political solution for the conflict in Syria within the current balance of powers,” the Syrian Coalition’s ambassador to France, Munzer Makhous, said yesterday. “Today, Syria is witnessing war crimes and the use of weapons of mass destruction,” he added, indicating in specific to “the massacres perpetrated in Aleppo killing over 650 victims” under aerial bombardment by Assad forces, that targeted some neighborhoods in the city since mid-December. Makhous added that “the Assad regime has been using TNT, we have never seen wars where such means were used against civil residential areas, yet no one is taking action and international condemnation is timid. We are aware of the trap ahead; we either go to surrender or we don’t go and get accused with foiling the political solution. Anyway, we are not going to implement what the Russians and the regime want, i.e. getting us to Geneva to impose on us collaborating with the regime against jihadists” Makhous continued, “getting in a conflict with extremist groups is not our goal now, since our top priority is toppling the regime.” He said that the Syrian Coalition could ask again for no-fly zones as a precondition to go to Geneva. “We should clearly reiterate that the objective of the political transition is building a civil democratic state which is vividly different from the current mafia-like Assad regime. We don’t want to create a copycat regime with some cosmetic modifications,” he concluded. (Source: al-Hayat + Syrian Coalition)
