Syrian opposition activists meeting in Istanbul on September 15 announced the members of Syrian National Council to provide an alternative to President Bashar Assad’s government as a brutal crackdown continued in their homeland. Addressing a news conference at the end of four days of talks, Basma Kadmani, a Syrian exile living in France, said the council aimed to help topple Assad’s dictatorship within six months and form an interim government thereafter. “The political vision of the council will give a push to the escalation of the revolutionary work we are seeing,” she said.
“This group, based on previous initiatives, and on what the street is demanding, is calling for the downfall of the regime with all of its limbs.” While condemning the Syrian government’s repressive response to pro-democracy protests, the international community has bemoaned the lack of a unified opposition that it could talk to. By finalising names of its members, drawn from Syria’s various political, religious and ethnic groups, the council hopes to fill that gap. “The next step will be international recognition, and the council will act in accordance with the wishes of the Syrian people,” Adip Shishakly, a member of a prominent Syrian political family, said at the end of the Istanbul meeting.