Kurdish leaderships call for calm, asking to meet with al-Assad; Damascus: a sedition buried at its birth
Syria, Politics, 3/19/2004

Damascus said yesterday that the acts of riots which hit al-Hassaka and certain Syrian cities during the past days were aiming at implanting "sedition" in the country, at a time when the Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari considered that what had happened was "an internal problem" in Syria which he said he will visit during the forthcoming days.

The Syrian minister of the Interior, Lt. Gen. Ali Haj Hammoud, announced the end of the acts of riots which he said caused the killing of 25 persons including police men and citizens and losses estimated at hundreds of millions of Syrian pounds.

In a press conference attended by the director of the foreign media department at the Syrian Foreign ministry Bushra Kanafani, Hammoud said that what had happened was an attempt to " implanted sedition " in Syria. He added that the "rioters" used during the acts of violence machine guns, stressing that " the Syrian Kurds" are part of the Syria national fabrics.

Hammoud explained that the incidents which started last Friday before the beginning of a football game took place following " friction between certain fans in each of the two teams to win the game" developed into a row and then fight resulted in five killings. He continued after the police ended the acts of riots " it arrested several rioters who carried out damaging acts in the playground," but the " implanted elements " exploited what had happened in al-Qamishli playground and carried out deliberate acts of destruction in the streets of the city included public and private properties and also the acts of riots expanded to certain towns and villages in the governorates of al-Hassaka and Aleppo.

Hammoud continued that the Syrian police worked to put an end to this "destruction operation by good means " with the aim to "bury the sedition, retaliated by the rioters in more acts of violence when there was no way for the policemen but to be tough and firm after all calm down attempts failed."

Hammoud described the current situation in the two governorates as saying that "life returned back to normal and common security returned back to all areas."

Meantime, human rights sources in Aleppo said that the city of Ifrin witnessed a limited tension yesterday evening ( Thursday) while news reports quoted a group of Syrian Kurds having opened fire on Wednesday evening at the houses of police officers in the industrial area in al-Qamishli.

Previous Stories:
  Al-Shara meets with Saudi peer on sideline of Syrian- saudi summit   (3/18/2004)
  Al-Assad holds Talks with Saudi Crown Prince, in a short visit to Riyadh   (3/18/2004)
  Al-Assad meets with Canadian church delegation   (3/18/2004)

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