Syria’s Ambassador to Iraq Reported to Defect

[maddezmom]

Source: NYT


Published: July 11, 2012

Syria's ambassador to Iraq was reported to have defected on Wednesday, which if confirmed would be the second prominent defection from President Bashar al-Assad's government in less than a week.

A high-ranking general in the elite Republican Guard, Manaf Tlass, a friend of Mr. Assad and the son of a former defense minister, fled Syria last Thursday.

The defection of the diplomat, Nawaf Fares, would be the first of a serving ambassador in 17 months of unrest. It was first reported by Al Jazeera in an unsourced dispatch. Burhan Ghalioun, a member of executive bureau and former leader of the Syrian National Council, the anti-Assad opposition group, corroborated the report on the sidelines of a news conference in Moscow, where a council delegation was talking to Foreign Ministry officials about the Syrian conflict.

"We welcome the defection of the Syrian ambassador to Iraq," Mr. Ghalioun said. "We have called upon high ranking officials whether in the military or in the diplomatic service to defect from this regime and join the revolution of dignity."


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/12/world/middleeast/syrias-ambassador-to-iraq-nawaf-fares-reported-to-defect.html

---

Russia, Syrian opposition deadlock over Assad's fate


Reuters) - Syrian opposition talks with Russia on a political transition in Damascus ended in discord on Wednesday as an opposition leader said Moscow's policies were helping to prolong the bloodshed in the pivotal Arab country.

"The Syrian people don't understand Russia's position. How can Russia keep supplying arms? How can they keep vetoing resolutions? There needs to be an end to mass killings," said Burhan Ghalioun, former leader of the Syrian National Council.

Russia has acted as one of Assad's few supporters, sending him arms and blocking Western-led attempts to isolate him with U.N. sanctions while violence in Syria has raged on, raising the death toll over 17,000, by a count of opposition activists.

Syria's opposition has conditioned starting talks with the Damascus government on Assad relinquishing power. But Russia - long a big arms supplier to Damascus - has said this is unacceptable and not part of an international peace plan laid out by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan.

more:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-syria-crisis-russiabre86a0q9-20120711,0,3495269.story

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Confirmed - he's talked to Al Jazeera

Syria's ambassador to Iraq has defected in protest at the military crackdown by Assad's forces against a 16-month uprising.

In exclusive statement to Al Jazeera, Nawaf al-Fares said that his decision came in the wake of what he described as horrible massacre committed against the Syrian people by the regime.

"I announced my resignation as Syrian ambassador to Iraq as I also declare my defection from the Syrian Baath party," said Fares on Wednesday.

"I urge all honest members of this party to follow my path because the regime has turned it (the party) to an instrument to kill people and their aspiration to freedom."

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/07/2012711205055855.html

[maddezmom]

2. thanks for the link

rather cutting words.

[Posteritatis]

3. You know it's bad when you *defect to Iraq*. (nt)

[pampango]

4. NYT: Syria Says Defecting Ambassador Is Fired

Syrian authorities said Thursday that their ambassador to neighboring Iraq had been fired, the first official, if roundabout, confirmation that the diplomat had defected in a new fracturing of the government of President Bashar al-Assad, which has faced a slow but growing rash of desertions. The declaration came a day after the envoy made his own announcement in a statement from an unidentified location that he had defected, urging "all honest members of this party to follow my path because the regime has turned it to an instrument to kill people and their aspiration to freedom.”

Mr. Fares was the first Syrian ambassador to defect since the uprising broke out in March 2011, and the second high-ranking exit from Mr. Assad’s government in less than week, following the departure last Thursday of Manaf Tlass, a general in the elite Republican Guard who is the son of a former defense minister.

Kofi Annan, the special envoy whose peace plan for ending the conflict in is paralyzed and at risk of complete collapse, asked the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday to threaten the Syrian government and the rebels with consequences for failure to comply.

The Security Council has already passed two resolutions that request compliance with Mr. Annan’s plan but do not carry coercive pressure. “You should insist on implementation of your decisions, and send a message to all that there will be consequences for noncompliance,” Mr. Annan, who represents the United Nations and Arab League, told the Council.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/13/world/middleeast/syria-says-defecting-ambassador-is-fired.html?_r=1

Can't blame the Syrian government for firing an ambassador who has already defected. Hopefully there will be more such 'firing' in the near future.

[Alamuti Lotus]

5. the "hero" of the day is apparently just another war criminal hedging his bets..

Meet the defector: the Syrian ambassador Nawwaf Al-Faris and the Hamah massacre of 1982
My source from the area sent me this: "i know about this man, nawaf al-faris, the defecting ambassador of syria to iraq, from the...the hama area. Hama people remember him well. He was commanding one of the battallions that committed atrocities there in 1982, and i heard it from hama and halab older people (now dead) that he personally threw 16 young boys youngest was 6, from the the rooftop of a building before their parents' eyes. i think i even read about him in a UN report on Hama 1982 but i may be wrong.
he is from the agaydat bedouins, who live along the euphrates in the area between deir al-zor and al-bu kamal. he was also the mohafez of qnaytra where a lot of displaced bedouins from the jawlan know about him. he is ambassador to iraq because he has many ties with the bedouin tribes there, and his own tribe, and two related ones, that of the dulaym and the jubur are found on both sides of the border.
he was very close to the regime, as much as the tlass clan, except that he commands a larger following among bedouins in the euphrates area. his defection means that the sunni ba'th party leaders of the jazirah area (and there are many, especially in raqqah), of which he is the most prominent, are now finding it very costly to stay allied with the regime. his flight through qatar, rather than turkey, means that the qataris have big plans for him in post-assad syria. you will hear his name again. a very very dirty and cruel man."

PS After Hamah, the ambassador was in the Political Security branch of the regime and was rewarded for his role in the massacre. I am told that he used to brag to Ba`thists about his accomplishments in Hamah.
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2012/07/meet-defector-syrian-ambassador-nawwaf.html