Syria: Don’t recognize opposition

BEIRUT (AP) ― Syria’s foreign minister warned the international community Sunday not to recognize a new umbrella council formed by the opposition, threatening “tough measures” against any country that does so.

Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem did not specify what measures Damascus might take. But he went on to say that countries that do not protect Syrian missions could find their own embassies treated in the same way.

“We will take tough measures against any country that recognizes this illegitimate council,” al-Moallem said without elaborating on what type of reaction it might bring.

The Syrian National Council, announced last week in Turkey, is a broad-based group which includes most major opposition factions. No country or international body has recognized it so far as a legal representative of the Syrian people.

Bourhan Ghalioun, the opposition council’s most prominent official, said he expects the organization will be recognized “in the coming few weeks.” Al-Moallem’s comments came as the council was scheduled to hold two meetings Sunday, one in Cairo and another in Stockholm.

Damascus appears concerned that if the Syrian National Council is recognized by the international community, it could play the same role as the National Transitional Council in Libya that ultimately overthrew longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi.

Syria’s top diplomat was speaking during a joint news conference with a delegation from the left-leaning ALBA bloc of mostly Latin American countries, which includes Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia. The ALBA officials were visiting Damascus to express solidarity with Syria and met Sunday with President Bashar Assad.

State-run news agency SANA quoted Assad as telling the delegation that Syria aims to make political reforms then end armed presence. But past promises of sweeping reforms have not been carried through and the opposition says they will accept nothing short of his departure.

“The foreign attack on Syria escalated after the situation started to improve because what they want is not reforms but for Syria to pay a price for its stances against foreign schemes in the region,” SANA quoted Assad as saying.

Assad was apparently referring to sanctions imposed by the U.S. and several European countries on his regime because of the crackdown. Assad insists the unrest is being driven by terrorists and Islamic extremists acting out a foreign conspiracy to fracture Syria.

Assad is facing the most serious challenge to his authority since he took power 11 years ago. The uprising against his regime began in mid-March amid a wave of anti-government protests in the Arab world that has so far toppled autocrats in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Assad has reacted with deadly force that the U.N. estimates has left some 2,900 people dead.

Al-Moallem criticized European countries where Syrian missions have recently been stormed by protesters, implying that Damascus might allow foreign delegations to be attacked in turn.

“If they don’t provide security to our missions, we will treat them the same way,” he said.

A group of protesters broke into the Syrian embassy in Berlin and two other Syrian diplomatic missions in Germany and Switzerland late Saturday and early Sunday in what appeared to protests against the killing of a Kurdish opposition leader.

He also criticized the U.S. and the French ambassadors to Syria, who have condemned the regime’s crackdown and visited tense areas outside Damascus angering authorities.

“We don’t interfere in their business the way some of them do in Damascus,” he said.

Last month, U.S. ambassador Robert Ford and several colleagues from the embassy were pelted with tomatoes and eggs as they visited an opposition figure. U.S. officials said the assault was part of a campaign to intimidate diplomats investigating Assad’s repression of pro-reform demonstrators.