AMMAN – Syrian activists have called for sweeping political changes that could end 41 years of Assad family rule in a rare meeting in Damascus allowed by the authorities under pressure from a three-month popular uprising.
“The solution to this crisis has to address its root causes,” said leading Syrian writer Michel Kilo, who spent three years as a political prisoner. “This regime must be toppled and replaced with a democratic system.”
The meeting at a Damascus hotel includes noted critics of President Bashar al-Assad who are respected in opposition circles, as well as some supporters of Assad.
Organisers said the gathering had approval from a senior aide to Dr Assad, who has sent troops to crush protests across the country while promising dialogue in an effort to contain an uprising for political freedoms that has posed the gravest threat to his rule since he succeeded his father 11 years ago.
Other speakers at the conference, attended by 150 people in a Damascus hotel, adopted a softer tone but said the demands of street protesters after decades of autocratic rule must be met.
Syrian writer Louay Hussein, who was also a political prisoner, said repression in the last four decades had undermined Syria as a whole while emphasising that peaceful means must be found to meet popular demands.
Hussein said the meeting would try to explore “ending the state of dictatorship and a peaceful and safe transition into a desired country, one of freedom, justice and equality”.
Monther Khaddam, an academic from the coastal city of Latakia, said a wider national dialogue was needed but that intellectuals were “behind street demands until the end”.
Organisers of yesterday’s conference described it as a platform for independent figures searching for a way out of the violence.
Main opposition figures had said the meeting could give political cover to Dr Assad, with human rights groups saying that security forces had killed more than 1,300 civilians and had imprisoned 12,000 since the uprising began in southern Syria.
Economist Aref Dalila, a major figure behind the gathering, pulled out at the last minute, saying he did not want to participate in a conference that could be used by the authorities while mass killing and arrests continued.
Thousands of Syrians have fled across the border to Turkey to escape violence in northern towns, while security forces also targeted protesters in the suburbs of Damascus and Homs who had called for an end to Dr Assad’s government.
The number of Syrian refugees in Turkish camps has swelled to 11,739, according to Turkey’s state-run news agency. The latest influx came as Syrian army units arrived in the border village of Khirbet al-Jouz.
Syrians began leaving for Turkey this month from areas in and around Jisr al-Shughour and Ma’arrat an Nu’man, straining relations between the two countries.
Dr Assad blamed the protests on a foreign conspiracy last week, while a deadlock over UN action on Syria continued in New York. – (Reuters, Bloomberg)