Syrian offers rebels Cabinet spots

— Syria’s foreign minister invited the country’s rebels Saturday to lay down their weapons and take part in a national dialogue, saying everyone who participates will be included in a new Cabinet with wide executive powers.

Walid al-Moallem said in an interview on state TV late Saturday that any opposition parties could join the Cabinet as long as they reject foreign intervention in Syria. The Syrian government has started contacting “representatives of the Syrian people,” he added.

Earlier this month, President Bashar Assad dismissed calls that he step down, vowing to keep fighting the rebels. Assad also proposed a national reconciliation conference, elections and a new constitution - concessions offered previously over the course of the uprising that began in March 2011. The opposition says that Assad can play no role in a resolution to the conflict.

“I tell the young men who carried arms to change and reform, take part in the dialogue for a new Syria and you will be a partner in building it. Why carry arms?” al-Moallem said in the hour-long interview. “Those who want foreign intervention will not be among us.”

He accused Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey of arming and financing the rebels in Syria. He said that Jabhatal-Nusra, an al-Qaida-linked group which the U.S. has declared a terrorist organization but which fights alongside Syrian rebels, had pulled in men from 27 countries to take up arms in Syria.

Last month, the international envoy in charge of trying to end Syria’s crisis, Lakhdar Brahimi, proposed a plan to halt Syria’s war with a cease-fire followed by the formation of a transitional government to run the country until new elections can be held.

Brahimi did not mention Assad by name, but said the transitional government would have “full executive powers” and would replace the Syrian leader. The plan was unveiled by world powers at an international conference in Geneva in June. Al-Moallem said the Geneva conference does not require Assad to leave power.

The interview came as activists reported violence in different areas of Syria.

In the northern province of Idlib, Syrian troops fought intense battles Saturday against rebels who are trying to capture two military bases in the northwest and step up their attacks on army compounds elsewhere in the country, activists said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees said the rebels destroyed at least one tank near the town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province. The rebels, who have been battling for weeks to take control of bases in Wadi Deif and Hamdiyeh, are working to cut off supply routes to the compounds, the human-rights group said.

Attacks on government bases are a recent focus of fighting in Syria’s civil war, which according to the United Nations has left more than 60,000 people dead.

Last week, rebels captured the nearby air base of Taftanaz in a significant blow to Assad’s forces, who increasingly rely on air power.

The rebels also have been trying to capture other air bases in the northern province of Aleppo, and, according to activists, were attacking the air base of Mannagh near the Turkish border.

In Turkey, state-run Anadolu news agency said Syria’s air force targeted a mosque and a school building that apparently was sheltering displaced Syrians in the town of Salqin, some 4 miles from the border with Turkey in Idlib province. Dozens of people were killed and wounded.

At least 30 people wounded in the attack were taken across the border to Turkey for treatment, and two died in Turkish hospitals, the news agency said.

The wounded included women and children, the agency said.

Syria’s official news agency SANA said troops had targeted rebel hide-outs in Salqin, killing and wounding some of them.

Also in Turkey on Saturday, members of the newly restructured Syrian opposition held a conference in Istanbul aiming to nominate representatives for a transitional government.

“We have some ideas, some proposals,” said one opposition member, Abdul Ahad Astephoa, without mentioning any specifics.

The group, known as the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, was formed in Qatar in November under international pressure to unite factions within the opposition.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the government was sending reinforcements to the central city of Homs where rebels have controlled some neighborhoods for more than a year. Residents of Homs, Syria’s third-largest city, were among the first to rise up against Assad and many refer to Homs as “the capital of the revolution.”

“It seems they are preparing for a big attack on Homs,” Abdul-Rahman said by telephone.

Information for this article was contributed by Suzan Fraser of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 10 on 01/20/2013

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