President Khoja stresses the importance of establishing safe areas during his meetings with American officials in Washington. ““Damascus should be besieged. Then it could fall suddenly. Before it falls, safe zones should be established to prevent extremists from abusing any subsequent void of power,” he said in an interview with the Hürriyet newspaper.
Safe zones are areas where the Syrian Coalition and the interim government can set up a transitional government to serve people under land protection from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and air protection from international forces.
“This is the concept,” Khoja says, adding that it would serve the purposes of forming a civilian government, paving the way for refugees to return to Syria from abroad, facilitating the humanitarian aid flow, providing a controlled advance toward Damascus, preventing extremists from gaining ground, and limiting the number of daily casualties.
Regime forces were recently dispersed in Dara’a, lost Jisr al-Shughour, and retreated from key locations on the highway between Aleppo and Damascus, while their siege in Aleppo is also broken, he also noted.
Meanwhile, Khoja said internal fighting had broken out inside the regime over what stemmed from some Syrian regime generals’ opposition to Iran’s overwhelming influence. (Source: Syrian Coalition)
