Syria condemns France decision to accept opposition envoy

"France is acting like a hostile nation," AFP quoted the Syrian National Reconciliation Minister, Ali Haidar as saying in Tehran on Sunday, a day after France invited the coalition to send an envoy to Paris.

    "It's as if it wants to go back to the time of the occupation," the minister noted of the French mandate in Syria after World War I.


The SNCROF formed on November 11 when opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad agreed to form a broad coalition to overthrow the president, urging their sympathizers to provide them with more advanced weaponry.

The SNCROF was immediately recognized by the Arab League and six Persian Gulf states, followed by Turkey.

France was the first Western power to recognize the newly-formed opposition and raised the prospects of openly arming the insurgents. Monzer Makhous is to become the coalition’s envoy to the European country.

The EU and US have also declared support for the opposition bloc, but have fallen short of recognizing it.

Paris also plans to request the European Union to lift an arms embargo against the insurgents fighting the Syrian government.

Iran and Russia have warned against provision of weapons to the insurgents.

On Sunday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in an address to the opening ceremony of a meeting on national dialogue in Syria that the shipment of arms to the insurgents in the crisis-hit Arab state runs counter to international regulations and is a blatant interference in the domestic affairs of an independent country.

Syria has been experiencing a deadly unrest since March 2011 and many people, including large numbers of Army and security personnel, have been killed in the violence.