By John Keating PARIS (KUNA) — The fourth “Friends of Syria” conference, agreed to be hosted by Morocco, is to be held in October, although the official announcement remains to be published, a Western diplomatic source indicated here Tuesday.
The diplomat stressed in answer to a KUNA question that officially Morocco would make the announcement but that it was pretty much understood the conference would be held next month.
No venue for the gathering was revealed, as yet.
The conference will be the latest high-level meeting of countries eager to promote change in Syria, following earlier conferences in Tunis, Istanbul and, most recently in Paris.
There were already over 100 participants in the Paris conference in July and these included national delegations and international and regional organisations. The October conference is expected to bring together an even larger participation.
About 50 Syrian opposition figures also attended the Paris event on July 6, hailing from various opposition factions. But the Syrian National Council (SNC) was viewed as the leading opposition movement there. There were calls on the other opposition groups to coordinate with the SNC but the anti-regime movement still remains badly divided.
There was broad agreement at the Paris conference that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad must step down in order to facilitate a political settlement in Syria, where UN estimates say over 20,000 people have died in the conflict over the past 18 months.
Opposition sources put the death toll at closer to 29,000 and there are an estimated 300,000 refugees who have fled Syria. There are also hundreds-of-thousands of internally displaced and between close to two million people are said to be in need of humanitarian aid like food and medicine.
(end) jk.sd KUNA 251757 Sep 12NNNN
