Syrian Brotherhood says Geneva conference aims to legitimise regime

A senior Muslim Brotherhood official in Syria has warned that the Geneva conference aims to “extract concessions” from the rebels and “legitimise the Assad regime”.

Zuhair Salem called on the “holders of the real revolution” to transcend the opposition, which he said has “fallen, voluntarily or otherwise” into the net of an international deal. The loudest voice in all of this, claims Salem, belongs to “those who will be better placed to stay loyal to the the international community’s main player”. He called for the basic concepts of the revolution to be rescued from the mire: no partnership with murderers and criminals and no compromise over the blood of martyrs. Salem added that the fate of criminals has to be prosecution and a fair trial, adding that there can be no hesitation over the goals of the revolution in a state of justice, freedom and human dignity.

So-called “transitional justice” will, said Salem in a press statement, be used to gloss over the crimes of those who claim authority in Geneva. “The conference will propose a partnership between the executioner and his victims, with the former claiming full rights for the legitimacy which half a century of oppression and persecution has not brought him,” he warned. “The course of events in Syria, with the international community allowing Russian and Iranian proxies to destroy the rebels, shows what all of this is leading to in Geneva.” He was sceptical about the Russian plan for a “mixed, broad-based national unity government” which, he believes, will contain key people from the regime and its lackeys.