DAMASCUS: Syria’s government declared on Tuesday that the ambassadors and staff of several Western countries as well as Turkey were personae non gratae.
“Some states recently informed heads of our diplomatic missions and embassy staff that they are unwelcome,” the foreign ministry said in a statement, adding Syria was now designating the ambassadors of the United States, Britain, France and Turkey, among others, as personae non gratae.
But the foreign ministry said the government was still open to re-establishing ties with the diplomats, almost all of whom had already been recalled by their governments.
“The Syrian Arab Republic still believes in the importance of dialogue based on principles of equality and mutual respect,” a ministry statement it said. “We hope the countries that initiated these steps will adopt those principles, which would allow relations to return to normal again.”
Syria has been mired in bloody conflict for over a year as security forces seek to crush a revolt against President Bashar Assad’s rule.
The United States, France, Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, Australia, Bulgaria and Switzerland coordinated a move to expel Syrian diplomats in response to a massacre of 108 people in the city of Houla. Nearly half those killed were children.
A slew of mainly Western countries expelled Syrian diplomats in the wake of the Houla massacre of more than 100 people in late May, one of the worst atrocities in the country since an uprising broke out in March 2011.
Army mounts offensive
On Tuesday, at least six people were killed as the Syrian army went on the offensive against rebel fighters, seizing a town in the central province of Hama, a monitoring group said.
After three days of bombardment, troops and pro-regime militiamen backed by tanks and armored cars entered Kfar Zita, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that rebel fighters had withdrawn.
Militiamen looted homes and shops after town residents fled, the NGO said.
It said four civilians were killed overnight in a “huge military operation” in the Kfar Oweid area of Idlib, a province bordering Turkey that is a stronghold of rebel forces.
The foes also clashed in several other areas of the province in northwest Syria, said the Britain-based Observatory.
The monitoring group said districts of the flashpoint city of Homs, also north of Damascus, came under artillery fire “as part of a campaign by regular forces to destroy them completely.”
In Latakia on the Mediterranean, two rebel fighters were killed in an attack by regime troops on the town of Al-Hafa, the group said. It said one of those killed was an officer who had defected from the regular army to join insurgents.
“Clashes in and around Al-Hafa are ongoing, and regime forces are attacking the town with heavy machine gun fire and mortar shells,” the Observatory’s head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
In Idlib city, five soldiers were wounded in a blast, the Observatory said, while the region was the scene of violent clashes throughout Monday, as were Daraa in the south, Aleppo in northern Syria and Latakia.
The group said anti-regime protests were held in the provinces of Damascus, Hama, Idlib and Raqa, in the country’s northeast.
In Aleppo, Syria’s commercial hub and once a regime bastion, demonstrators chanted: “Revolution of dignity and freedom!” In Damascus suburbs, protesters with covered faces chanted: “God protect the (rebel) Free Syrian Army!“
On Monday, 38 people were killed in violence across the country, including at least 18 civilians, the Observatory said.
