Syrian National Council Live Blog

20 hours 25 min ago - Syria

The opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) has accepted the resignation of Burhan Ghalioun, its president.

Wednesday's announcement comes amid a meeting held in neighbouring Turkey.

At the Istanbul meeting, the National Council Statue was discussed as the General Secretariat was called on to complete the project  of restructuring and reforming the council itself.

An SNC statement said Ghalioun had suggested the council's restructuring.

Ghalioun has been asked to remain in his position until a June election could find his replacement.

Tags Burhan Ghalioun, Syrian National Council
1 day 5 hours ago - Syria

The head of Syria's main opposition bloc, Burhan Ghalioun, formally resigned from his post, a statement issued by the Syrian National Council said Thursday after a two-day meeting in Istanbul.

The SNC "office decided to accept the resignation and to ask the council president to pursue his work until the election of a new president at a meeting on June 9-10", it said. Ghalioun announced his resignation on May 17 to avert divisions within the opposition bloc, after activists on the ground accused him of monopolising power. [AFP]

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Tags Syrian National Council, Turkey
1 week 13 hours ago - Syria

Burhan Ghalioun, the head of the Syrian National Council, has announced on the SNC's Facebook page that he is calling on the group's general assembly to meet in a month to re-select its governing bodies and president through elections.

He is calling on the groups' administrative bodies to work from now on preparing for such elections that aims to restructure the SNC.

Tags Burhan Ghalioun, opposition, SNC, Syrian National Council
1 week 15 hours ago - Syria

The head of the Syrian National Council, Burhan Ghalioun, announced on Thursday that he is resigning, pending the naming of his successor, just two days after his controversial re-election.

"I will not allow myself to be the candidate of division, I am not attached to a position, so I announce that I will step down after a new candidate has been chosen, either by consensus or through new elections," the Paris-based academic said in a statement.

Ghalioun has led the council since if was founded last autumn and was re-elected in a vote held in Rome on Tuesday. [AFP]

Tags Burhan Ghalioun, Syrian National Council
1 week 1 day ago - Syria

The opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) hit back at reports on Wednesday that a leading dissident had resigned from the organisation, saying Fawaz Tello had never been a member.

Liberal politician Tello said on Tuesday he was leaving in protest at the council's failure to push through democratic reforms and unify the fractured opposition to President Assad.

The announcement was seen as a major blow to the embattled body that has seen several senior figures quit in the last few months. 

But the SNC released a statement on Wednesday saying it affirmed "after reviewing its membership list that Tello is not a member of the council and had not attended any of its meetings".

Tello, a former political prisoner who fled Syria three months ago, told Reuters he was surprised by the statement. 

"I became an SNC member while in Syria along with a number of comrades inside. I let my membership be known publicly when I left the country three months ago," he said. 

Tags Fawaz Tello, Syrian National Council
1 week 2 days ago - Syria

The Syrian National Council opposition group re-elected liberal politician Burhan Ghalioun as president at a meeting in Rome on Tuesday, two sources at the meeting told Reuters.

Ghalioun, a secular academic, has been leader of the opposition in exile since August 2011 when the SNC was formed.
But he has been criticised for being out of touch with the opposition inside Syria and for failing to unify the SNC.

[Source: Reuters]

Tags Burhan Ghalioun, Syrian National Council
1 week 3 days ago - Syria

The Arab League has postponed a Syrian opposition meeting it was due to host in Cairo this week in response to a request from Syrian opposition groups, the Arab League said in a statement on Monday.

The meeting had been scheduled to take place on Wednesday and Thursday. The statement from the Arab League said the postponement had been at the request of the Syrian National Council and the National Co-ordination Body. [Reuters]

Tags National Coordination Body, Syrian National Council, talks
1 week 3 days ago - Italy

The Syrian National Council will not take part in talks sponsored by the Arab League aimed at uniting the opposition, a member of the bloc's executive council said told Reuters Monday.

 "The SNC will not be going to the meeting in Cairo because it (the Arab League) has not invited the group as an official body but as individual members," Ahmed Ramadan said in Rome. 

Tags Arab League, dialogue, syria, Syrian National Council
1 week 5 days ago - Rome
The Syrian National Council (SNC), a fractious umbrella group opposed to President Bashar al-Assad, gathered on Saturday for three days of talks aimed at deciding on its own leadership and shoring up its credibility at home and abroad. 
 
Two SNC executive committee members, Samir Nashar and George Sabra, said the council was discussing whether to reelect Burhan Ghalioun, its president since it was set up in exile in August. 
 
The Paris-based academic has been criticised for being out of touch with the opposition inside Syria and for failing to unify the SNC, which has yet to win full international recognition as the Syrian people's legitimate representative. 
 
"We are in heated discussions over the presidency ... We are against an extension or a renewal of Burhan Ghalioun's term," said Nashar, a member of the Damascus Declaration, a faction within the SNC. 
 
"We are in favour of transition because it gives all the various Syrian political components a chance in the post," Nashar told Reuters in Rome, where the SNC was meeting. 
 
Nashar, who left Syria after an initial arrest in Aleppo in 2006, said he favoured Sabra to lead the SNC "for many reasons, mainly because he is an opposition member from inside Syria".
 
Interviewed separately, Sabra declined to say if he was a candidate, but advocated radical reforms for a group that has been prone to political wrangling and a lack of transparency. 
 
"We have to change the way decisions are made between people, between the establishments of the SNC, between the components of the SNC," he said, without elaborating. 
 
Sabra spent years in prison under Assad's rule and that of his father and predecessor Hafez al-Assad before fleeing to France last year. He has acted as a spokesman for the SNC. 
 
"We need so many things to be changed," he said. "We have a plan, we have a committee that did something good ... but we have to reach the end of these (reforms)." 
 
Nashar is among those who argue that putting Sabra, a Christian, at the head of the SNC would help reassure Syrian minorities wary of the largely Sunni Muslim revolt that their rights would be respected if Assad, whose minority Alawite sect dominates power, is overthrown. 
[Reuters]
Tags syria, Syrian National Council
1 week 6 days ago - France

Burhan Ghalioun, the leader of the opposition bloc Syrian National Council, said on Friday at a news conference in Tokyo that the cease-fire brokered by U.N. envoy Kofi Annan was "in crisis" because it lacks teeth to punish non-compliance.

Assad's regime has blamed Thursday's attacks on terrorists it says are behind the 14-month uprising.

But Ghalioun said the bombers were "radical forces" linked to Syrian leadership, which he said had cooperated with al-Qaida against US forces in Iraq.

Tags Burhan Ghalioun, damascus, syria, Syrian National Council

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