This image will be automatically disabled when it gets reported by several people.
Al-Khatib's resignation 'might be' reversed Arab sources say that Syrian opposition leader Moaz Al-Khatib is being pressured to reconsider his resignation
Arab diplomatic sources said today that the resignation of Syrian opposition leader Moaz Al-Khatib might be reversed if some of his key demands are met. “He has been receiving high-level calls from key Arab leaders to reconsider his resignation,” said one Arab diplomat who spoke to Ahram Online from the Qatari capital, which will host the Arab summit in a couple of days. The resignation of Al-Khatib, which was prompted according to the same sources by his reservations about the increased say of Islamists in the Syrian opposition camp and their determination to pursue a more militant approach, was not taken as a side matter by concerned Arab leaders and diplomats, especially those working on finding a negotiated exit to the Syrian dilemma. “I think that US Secretary of State John Kerry is personally interested still in supporting the initiative that Al-Khatib had made to start a negotiation process with the regime of Bashar Al-Assad to end the crisis in Syria,” said another diplomat. A meeting is scheduled Monday in Cairo for opposition figures to consider ways of meeting some of the key demands of Al-Khatib, especially those related to giving negotiations precedent over the militant resolution approach. A source close to the preparations for the meeting said that there are no guarantees that Al-Khatib would reverse his resignation, especially as he sees the Arab League move to pass the seat of his country at the Arab summit to the Ghassan Hitto-led transitional government as a premature move to accord recognition to Hitto, who does not have the full support of all the factions of the Syrian opposition. Al-Khatib, according to Ahram Online sources, is determined to get a more “equitable” operation of decision-making among the many factions of Syrian opposition. “He says, and he has a point, that the whole fate of the Syrian people is decided by Islamist militants who are now getting more arms from the Europeans and some Arab capitals, who are working to cut off the head of Bashar Al-Assad without much attention to the consequences of any move on the fate of Syrian peaceful co-existence,” said one. Speaking to the press two days ago, Al-Khatib had made vocal criticism of the militarisation of the Syrian opposition and the influx of jihadis to Syria, and warned that this might lead to the fragmentation of the country. The debate within the ranks of the Syrian opposition comes against a backdrop of a similar debate within the Western quarters over a joined French-British decision to upscale armament of Syrian opposition in face of a brutal Assad regime. It also comes against the backdrop of a new Israeli attack on a Syrian military post – the second this year – in the wake of an attack on an Israeli military post in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights. http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/67684.aspx
