President Hopes For Political Solution To Syria

Jakarta, Jan 7 (ANTARA) - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has expressed hope that political transition acceptable to all parties in Syria will be created so that the crisis that has claimed many victims in that country could be ended. Presidential Spokesman Julian Aldrian Pasha said at the Cipanas Palace, Cianjur, West Java, on Monday that the president expressed the hope when he received Syrian born ulema Syekh Muhammad Ali Ash-Shobuni at the Bogor State Palace on Monday morning. He said that the president hoped the conflict would soon end. "The president hoped there would be a political transition which could be accepted by all sides in Syria." During the meeting, Julian said, the president told his guest that Indonesia was proposing three things to end the conflict. The three things proposed by Indonesia were: stopping the conflict, providing humanitarian assistance and creating a political transition acceptable to all sides. In the meantime, Indonesian NGO Migrant Care has urged the government to immediately evacuate all remaining Indonesian migrant workers from Syria amidst escalating tensions in the conflict-torn country. "The government must have the courage to conduct en mass evacuation of its migrant workers from Syria, like what the Philippines did. Although it is risky to conduct such a mission now," Wahyu Susilo, a policy analyst of Migrant care said on Friday. The Indonesian migrant workers in Syria are not safe because the government has been too slow in handling the evacuation efforts following the armed conflicts in the Middle Eastern country, he said. The Foreign Affairs Ministry is speeding up the repatriation of Indonesian citizens from Syria, through the Lebanese capital of Beirut. "All Indonesian citizens sheltered in our representative facility in Damascus will be gradually moved to Beirut," said the ministry`s media and public relations director, PLE Priatna, late last month. The worsening security situation in Syria has prompted the government to evacuate all Indonesian citizens from the conflict-ravaged Middle Eastern country. The number of Indonesian citizens who have taken refuge in the Damascus-based facility has exceeded 600 and is likely to increase as the conflict escalates in Syria. Meanwhile, the Indonesian ambassador to Lebanon, Dimas Samodra Rum, said his embassy was ready to welcome the Indonesian citizens from Syria. "In order to accommodate more than 600 Indonesian citizens here, the embassy will make optimal use of its premises and, if necessary, we will temporarily rent some apartments," he explained. He said that the embassy would mobilize all its resources to assist the repatriation process, because it has become the main priority. Dimas noted that some 156 Indonesian citizens had arrived in Beirut on December 24 and 70 of them were to be flown to Indonesia on Wednesday. The second batch, consisting of 198 Indonesian citizens, will arrive from Syria on Friday. Beirut embassy`s Team Coordinator for Indonesian Citizen Repatriation Process, RA Arief, said his team would provide the Indonesian citizens with "all the technical and logistical support they will need during their stay in Beirut". "We will also provide food for our citizens at the embassy," Arief stated. "The embassy will also have to carry out its official duties as usual, due to which we will need to allocate our resources carefully," he added.