DOHA: Foreign ministers of the Friends of Syria group on Saturday agreed to provide urgent support to rebels who are fighting President Bashar al-Assad, a final statement of the group meeting in Doha said.
The Friends of Syria group which includes the US, Britain, France and Germany, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UAE, Egypt and Jordan was meeting in Qatari capital of Doha on Saturday for crucial talks on arming the opposition fighting to oust Assad’s regime.
The group agreed to “provide urgently all the necessary materiel and equipment to the opposition on the ground, each country in its own way in order to enable them to counter brutal attacks by the regime and its allies and protect the Syrian people,” the statement said.
Support would be channelled through the western-backed rebel military command.
It also called on the immediate withdrawal of Lebanese Hezbollah and Iranian fighters from Syria.
Qatar Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani told the ministers that “Force is necessary to achieve justice. And the provision of weapons is the only way to achieve peace in Syria’s case.”
The meeting came a week after US President Barack Obama ordered his administration to provide the foreign-backed militants in Syria with more sophisticated weapons, claiming that the Syrian government had used “chemical weapons” against the militants and thus crossed Washington’s “red line.”
Damascus has rejected the allegations as “lies.”
On Friday, the militants announced that they had received new weapons that could lead to “changes” in war against the Syrian government.
