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Syria opposition pours scorn on UN statement

‘Such statements, issued amid continued killings, offer the regime the opportunity to push ahead with its repression in order to crush the revolt by the Syrian people,’ said Samir Nashar, member of the executive committee of the Syrian National Council.

‘We would have hoped for the United Nations to speak in one voice ... through a strong and dissuasive resolution aimed at stopping the continued killings and massacres carried out by (President) Bashar Al Assad’s forces,’ Nashar told AFP.

‘It is time for the UN Security Council to use its powers to stop these massacres,’ he added.

Nashar noted that the statement adopted by the UN on Wednesday was non-binding and as such toothless.

‘There is no way to reach a compromise with Assad’s regime’ he said. ‘We want radical change that will transform Syria from a dictatorship to a democracy.’

He said that barring regime change, the country was likely headed toward civil war.

‘The regime’s policy of killings is prompting people to carry weapons to defend themselves and that is legitimate,’ Nashar said. ‘But this will lead to the militarisation and Islamisation of the conflict.’

He said those likely to bear arms are people with Islamist leanings rather than members of civil society seeking democracy.

More than 9,100 people have been killed in the revolt that broke out in March last year against Assad’s regime, according to rights monitors.