The former president of the Syrian National Coalition, Sheikh Mouaz al-Khatib, said that his main concern is "to stop what is going on" and called for “direct negotiations with the regime to stop the bloodshed and resolve many of the problems away from the stagnation of the international community".
In an interview with All4Syria, Khatib said that he advocates a boycott of the "blood election", but added that "it is not a matter of insults. We have been listening to opponents who suggest they're on the doors of the presidential palace, as if we are stopping them."
"What I want to say is: There have not been any real political negotiations to search for a solution, and if there were real negotiations, they will not hinder the revolution, they may fail, but if they were successful, they would save a lot of blood. You may ask me about Geneva, and I will tell you that the two parties went to Geneva because of the international pressure, not because they were consented," Khatib said.
The form of the solution that Khatib has in mind will take the country from the state of intractability that hinders any negotiation solution, he said.
"Direct negotiation solves many of the political complexities and the Arabs do not accept half compromises, and this is bad,” he said.
"Some countries are fighting other states in our country, and they are trying to revive all the conflict causes allow the situation to serve their plans. These countries are not interested in the success of any negotiation process, and they theoretically focus on arming the opposition to subvert any political track. Actually, they subvert the truth here and do not provide anything there," he said.
Regarding the recent meeting between Syrian opposition figures and the Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy in Cairo, Khatib said the meeting was held to talk about "the need to seek an Arab incubator consisting of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt, in addition to a Turkey, to find a formula that stops the bloodshed in Syria."
"The Egyptian Foreign Ministry welcomed the idea and said frankly that it supports any solution to save Syria from the increased killing and bloodshed, and that they do not support any party against the other and they support unifying the opposition. There was another important issue mentioned casually in the press, which is the topic of our Syrian brothers living in Egypt and what they suffer. We talked about this frankly with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and he promise to help them as much as possible," Khatib said.
"Some of the military commanders of thousands of fighters told me after the first initiative: We are convinced exactly of what you say, and if you want, we will issue statements confirming this, but we will lose our financial sources if we supported you", Khatib said.
Khatib denied the existence of any channels of communication with the regime.
"I'm not afraid to announce it if there were. I was visited by dozens of people who may be somehow close to the regime, and I cannot be sure of everyone I meet, but nobody has tried any mediation, and their visits were unofficial," he said.
Khatib also denied the idea of occupying the position of the prime minister within an understanding with the regime. "This matter has no basis. We did not look for positions previously and we will not look for them", he said.
Khatib also denied that America and Russia have a vision to divide Syria. But he said that "the international neglect may lead to the division of Syria. I have met the Russian Commissioner Bogdanov and the American Commissioner Rubenstein last month, and they confirmed definitively that their governments do not support any project to divide Syria. I think that the basic guarantee is the coming together of all the Syrian, the pro-government and opposition, to repel any project of this kind, and I highly evaluate the Charter of Honor issued by the Islamic Front which emphasized this point".
......
