Support to Syrian opposition within democratic principles: US

Washington, Apr 19 (PTI) The US has insisted that its
support to Syrian opposition, including a television channel,
is consistent with principles of supporting the civil society,
democracy and human rights activists around the world.
"The US government provides support to civil society,
democracy and human rights activists around the world in line
with our values, among them respecting the fundamental human
rights of free speech, peaceful assembly and human dignity.
"US outreach to Syrian civilian society is entirely
consistent with those principles," White House Press Secretary
Jay Carney told reporters at his daily news conference
on Monday.
Carney was responding to questions about leaked State
Department cable by whistle-blower website WikiLeaks,
according to which the State Department provided aid to an
anti-Syrian government broadcast group, Barada TV.
Both the White House and the State Department refused
to speak on the specifics of the cable details in this regard.
"The US democracy and governance programmes in Syria
is no different than programmes that the United States has in
many other democratic governments or countries around the
world. This is part of our support for civil society and
non-governmental organisations.
What's different, I think, in this situation is that
the Syrian Government perceives this kind of assistance as a
threat to its control over the Syrian people," the State
Department spokesman Mark Toner said at another news
conference.
He said US is not working in Syria to undermine that
government but to build a proper democratic set up as it has
done in other countries.
"What we are trying to do in Syria, through our civil
society support, is to build the kind of democratic
institutions, frankly, that we're trying to do in countries
around the globe," he said.

"My own personal experience, when I was in Poland in
the 1990s, we worked enormously with civil society and
nongovernmental organisations. The difference here, as I said,
is that the Syrian Government perceives this kind of
assistance as a threat to its existence," Toner said.
The US is working with a variety of civil society
actors in Syria, with the goal to strengthen freedom of
expression and the kind of institutions that it believes are
going to be vital to a possible democratic future in Syria, he
asserted.
The United States, Toner said is very candid in its
relations with the Syrian Government, both in voicing its
concerns about their most recent crackdown on the protests and
legitimate protests, in the face of many, many years of
oppressive governance by the Asad regime.
"We believe that it's incumbent on President Asad and
his government to address these universal aspirations of their
people. But we're going to continue to press our message to
the Syrian Government," he said.
The Syrian President, who is facing very real and
legitimate concerns of his people, talked about some
additional reforms, Toner said.
"He came out this weekend. He talked about some
additional reforms. He talked about lifting the emergency law.
These would be positive signs, but ultimately, it's up to the
Syrian people to interpret those as adequate, the White House
official noted.
Toner added that though the Syrian president said a
lot of things before publicly, but there has been very little
implementation of those in reality.