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French President François Hollande says is ready to recognise provisional government in Syria
French President, François Hollande, has urged Syria's divided opposition to form a provisional government, saying Paris would give it official recognition.
The announcement on Monday came on the same day that activists said they had downed a Syrian military helicopter and at least two Syrian fighter planes targeted the neighbourhood of Zemalka and the easterly suburb of Saqba in a number of sorties, killing at least 60 people.
Hollande's intervention was aimed at increasing pressure on Syria's President, Bashar al-Assad but it also revealed differences with other western capitals, but American officials said the announcement was premature.
Washington and London have been more guarded in their dealings with Syrian opposition groups which they see as too fractured and ineffective to form an alternative government.
"France asks the Syrian opposition to form a provisional government, inclusive and representative, that can become the legitimate representative of the new Syria," Hollande said, at a meeting of French ambassadors at the presidential palace. "France will recognise the provisional government of Syria once it is formed."
He went on: "We are including our Arab partners to accelerate this step". The Arab League is trying to encourage opposition factions to sign up to a common transition plan for a post-Assad Syria but the main exile group, the Syrian National Council, has been reluctant to take part, fearing a dilution of its influence.
In a similar warning issued by the US and Britain, the French President warned Assad that any use of chemical weapons would be a legitimate justification for military intervention. T
“With our partners we remain very vigilant regarding preventing the use of chemical weapons, which for the international community would be a legitimate reason for direct intervention,” Hollande said in a speech.
Earlier in the day in these suburbs, inhabited predominantly by Sunni Muslims, who make up the majority of Syria’s population who have been at the forefront of fighting against President Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian Army fighters had attacked and overrun several army roadblocks.
After weeks of battles targeting the northern city of Aleppo, Syrian authorities seem to have returned their attention to the outskirts of the capital, where opposition activists said that at least 62 people had been killed in an assault on the suburbs.
The same activists earlier accused Assad’s troops and sectarian militia of massacring hundreds of people in the neighbouring town of Daraya, just southwest of Damascus. On Sunday they said they had found about 320 bodies, including some of women and children, in Daraya. Most had been killed execution-style, they said.
However, as Syrian authorities have banned entry to most foreign media, it is impossible to verify accounts of activity in most towns.
Meanwhile, at the United Nations, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the Daraya killings as “an appalling and brutal crime” that should be independently investigated immediately, while Egypt’s new President Mohamed Mursi, called on Monday for Assad’s allies to help lever the Syrian leader out of power. He demanded an investigation.
Ban’s spokesman Martin Nesirky said: “The secretary-general is certainly shocked by those reports and he strongly condemns this appalling and brutal crime. “This needs to be investigated immediately, in an independent and impartial fashion.”
Egypt's new leader, Mohamed Mursi, has launched his own peace initiative. But in his first interview with an international news organisation before embarking on a trip to China and Iran he told Reuters: “Now is the time to stop this bloodshed and for the Syrian people to regain their full rights and for this regime that kills its people to disappear from the scene.”
He added: “There is no room to talk about reform, but the discussion is about change,” Mursi said.
Mursi is due in Iran Thursday in a significant sign of rapprochement between the two countries, and a step towards bridging Sunni-Shia differences in policy towards Damascus. He will be participating at the summit of the Non-Aligned Movement of developing countries in Tehran. It will mark the first visit by an Egyptian leader since the 1979 Islamic revolution, and a substantial change from the foreign policy of the ousted Hosni Mubarak.
Syria’s state television has confirmed a helicopter had crashed in Damascus on Monday but gave no details. Opposition activists said rebels had shot it down; opposition video footage showed a crippled aircraft burning up and crashing into a built-up area, sending up a pillar of oily black smoke.
Activists are reported telling Reuters that 11 of Monday’s dead were killed in the district of Jobar, where the helicopter came down. Five of the Jobar victims had been captured and summarily executed by security forces, and the others died when their homes were hit.
Video from campaigners showed 20 bodies on the floor of a mosque, including three children.
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