Kurds accuse SNC of hijacking the revolution

ISTANBUL- Hürriyet Daily News

Exiled Syrian opposition figures meet in Cairo, as Syrian Kurds group storms out.

Opposition group the Syrian National Council (SNC) has “a hidden agenda to bring an Islamist, Sunni Arab nationalist regime to Syria by excluding the Kurds and other minorities,” according to the president of the Syrian Kurdish opposition group the Kurdish National Assembly, Sherkoh Abbas. He was speaking after talks between the different opposition groups in the Egyptian capital descended into chaos and fistfights.

“The SNC is hijacking the Syrian revolution on the ground. It sees Syria as only Arabs and this is not correct. The people on the ground don’t see the SNC as their representatives anymore,” Abbas told the Hürriyet Daily News in an interview yesterday.

Chaos in Cairo talks
Syria’s fractured opposition groups yesterday wound up talks in Cairo that descended into chaos after they failed to forge a common vision for a political transition of power.

More than 200 participants from 30 different movements had gathered in Cairo to form a unified front against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

After two days of meetings hosted by the Arab League, the groups agreed broadly that any transition must exclude al-Assad, and agreed to support the rebel Free Syrian Army, Agence France-Presse has reported. However, the participants failed to present a united bloc as disagreements led to heated arguments, walkouts and even fistfights, participants said.

The Syrian Kurdish National Council stormed out of the meeting late on July 3, protesting that the final document failed to specifically mention the Kurds, a senior Arab League official said. Abbas said the Syrian Kurds believed in federalism in Syria and that the SNC did not address Kurdish rights in its statements. “We will not accept less than a federal government in Syria. However, the SNC wants to replace the regime with a different regime that is Islamist in nature and led by the Muslim Brotherhood. They don’t recognize the rights of Kurds, Alawites, Christians and other minorities.”