- A senior Syrian official said the seven-week turmoil in the country was drawing to a close, while fresh protests and violence hit unrest-weary Yemen Tuesday.
Syrian Presidential Advisor Buthaina Shaaban, during an interview with The New York Times published Tuesday, said her country had weathered through the worst stage of the turmoil, saying it was almost over. 0 “I think now we’ve passed the most dangerous moment. I hope so. I think so,” Shaaban said.
She said Syria had faced “armed terrorist gangs and foreign conspiracy” that sought to stir unrest in the country.
Meanwhile, the Syrian Interior Ministry said 1,083 people across the country, who were involved in recent riots, had surrended to authorities.
The ministry said they had been immediately released after pledging not to repeat acts that might harm the country and other citizens.
The ministry had recently appealed to rioters to surrender themselves to authorities before May 15, and warned against any demonstrations “under any title” without official permission.
Syria has been hit by unprecedented anti-government protests that first erupted in the southern city of Daraa in mid-March and spread to other cities including the capital Damascus.
According to Syrian human rights groups, security forces have killed at least 800 civilians so far, while 9,000 people have been jailed or gone missing.
Syrian authorities say the protesters have killed over 100 soldiers and security agents.
Hundreds of Syrians rallied in front of the French embassy and the headquarters of the Delegation of the European Commission in Damascus to protest the Western stance on Syria’s unrest.
The demonstrators said the Syrian people were not afraid of the “conspiracies and the misleading media campaigns which aim at sowing sedition to undermine Syria’s stability and security” by some Western countries.
The European Union (EU) said an arms embargo and sanctions against 13 Syrian officials deemed responsible for the regime’s crackdown on protesters would come into force on Tuesday.
French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said Paris would press for wider EU sanctions, including those against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad himself, saying the EU risked being “passive and powerless witnesses” to events in Syria.
In Yemen, police opened fire to disperse an anti-government protest involving thousands of people in the western Al-Hodayda province, injuring more than 20 protesters.
They were rushed to hospitals as several of them were in critical conditions.
The protest, like the previous ones held over the past three months, demanded an immediate end to the 33-year rule of embattled President Ali Abdulla Saleh.
Armed tribesmen believed to be the Yemeni Houthi-led Shiite rebels kidnapped seven military officers in the northern province of Al-Jouf, a local security official told Xinhua.
The armed rebels abducted the seven officers when the latter were en route from the capital Sanaa to their barracks in Al-Jouf province, some 143 km north of Sanaa, the official said on condition of anonymity. Leaders of the opposition and youth-led protesters said they were mulling escalating protests by marching toward main government buildings in major cites to force Saleh’s immediate ouster.
They said their options would depend on the results of the consultative meeting of leaders of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) held in Riyadh Tuesday.
The meeting was slated for discussing the strained relations between the GCC and Iran, and seeking possible ways to solve the crises in some countries in the region, particularly Yemen, Syria and Libya.
On April 21, the GCC presented an initiative for ending Yemen’s political dilemma, which urged President Saleh to leave office within 30 days after signing the deal in exchange for immunity from prosecution, and the new government, formed by the opposition within seven days, should arrange presidential and parliamentary elections in 60 days.
The Yemeni government has yet to accept the initiative.
Meanwhile, President Saleh met the UN envoy to Yemen Jamal bin Omar in Sanaa to discuss solutions to the country’s political crisis.
Saleh was briefed on the results of meetings that Omar had conducted with leaders of the opposition Joint Meeting Parties (JMP) regarding the prolonged standoff.
During the meeting, the envoy expressed the UN readiness to help resolve the political deadlock between Saleh and the JMP, stressing it should be solved peacefully without any foreign interference.
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