President of the Syrian Opposition Coalition (SOC), Salem Al-Meslet, received a delegation from the Italian Foreign Ministry and discussed with them the latest developments in the field and political situation in Syria.
The meeting brought together SOC’s Secretary-General Haitham Rahma, SOC’s representative in Italy Bassam Al-Emadi, Italian special envoy to Syria Stefano Ravagnan, and Head of the Political Office at the Italian Embassy in Ankara Luca Carpintieri.
Al-Meslet stressed the dangers of legitimizing or rehabilitating the Assad regime, stressing that it is a wrong strategy that contradicts UN resolutions. He also stressed that the return of the Assad regime to the Arab League means Iranian militias joining it, which will threaten the entire region, especially the Arab Gulf states.
Moreover, Al-Meslet made it clear that the Assad regime has been committing crimes against civilians for ten years, and that the international response has so far fallen short of deterring the regime and stopping its crimes.
He pointed to the importance of cooperation to press for the release of detainees in the Assad regime’s prisons and disclosing the fate of the forcibly disappeared. He added that there is an urgent need to support Syrian refugees and cooperate to solve their problems, as well as confront attempts to forcibly return refugees to regime areas in view of the dangers that threaten their lives.
Al-Meslet also pointed to the “disappointing” results of the latest session of the Constitutional Committee, stressing that the political process needs to be revitalized by the friends of the Syrian people in order to confront the Assad regime’s attempts to obstruct the implementation of UN resolutions.
Al-Meslet also pointed to the importance of reaching a political solution in Syria, working to activate all the baskets laid out in UN Resolution 2254, and refusal to reduce Syria to drafting a constitution or to humanitarian issues only.
For his part, Mr. Ravagnan affirmed that his country is well aware of the scale of the crimes committed by the Assad regime against the Syrian people over the past years. He stressed and that normalization of ties with the regime or rehabilitating it is not acceptable at all, and that it is necessary to work on scenarios that are most beneficial to the Syrian people.
(Source: SOC’s Media Department)
