SNC calls for intervention

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

There is an urgent need for an international intervention in Syria, Khoja.

The Syrian National Council (SNC), the main opposition group in Syria, is set to announce a declaration to be signed by the country’s leading public figures ahead of the Friends of Syrian People meeting in France, and is set to call for an international intervention in Syria, the Hürriyet Daily News has learned.

“After the massacre in Houla, now it is for sure that there is an urgent need for an international intervention in Syria. If the international community does not take this responsibility, then we will start a total intifada (revolt) with men, women, children in Syria,” Khaled Khoja, Turkey’s representative for the SNC, told the Daily News on May 29.

Yemen formula would not work

During the Friends of the Syrian People meeting in France scheduled for July, they will make a call for the implementation of the “Chapter 7 sanctions resolution” of the U.N. Security Council, referring to the charter provision that allows for military intervention against another country, Khoja said. The so-called Yemen Formula, which was reported to be offered by U.S. President Barack Obama to his former counterpart Vladimir Putin, and which is a plan for Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s departure under a proposal modeled on the transition seen in Yemen, would not work for Syria, Khoja said. “It is not only about the toppling of the al-Assad family anymore. There are generals, high-ranking army officials, and more than 50,000 Shabbihas who committed these massacres in Syria. The situation is like [the one] in Bosnia [during the war] right now,” Khoja said.