US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stressed the need for a post-Assad Syria to protect the rights of minorities, ethnic groups and women as she met here on Tuesday with Syrian opposition leaders.
Clinton made the points as she met for the first time with members of the Syrian National Council (SNC), which formed in October in a bid to oust President Bashar al-Assad who is leading a deadly crackdown on protests.
"I'm particularly interested in the work you are doing about how a democratic transition would proceed," Clinton told seven SNC members, including president Burhan Ghalioun, at her hotel in the Swiss city of Geneva.
"A democratic transition includes more than removing the Assad regime," the chief diplomat added at the start of a meeting that US officials said lasted nearly two hours.
"It means setting Syria on the path of the rule of law and protecting the universal rights of all citizens regardless of sect, or ethnicity or gender," she said.
"We will discuss the work that the council is doing to ensure that their plan is to reach out to all minorities, to counter the regime's divide and conquer approach which pits ethnic and religious groups against one another," she said.
"The Syrian opposition as represented here recognises that Syria's minorities have legitimate questions and concerns about their future," the chief US diplomat said.
The opposition understands "that they need to be assured that Syria will be better off under a regime of tolerance and freedom that provides opportunity and respect and dignity on the basis of the consent rather than on the whims of a dictator," she added.
In November, the Syrian National Council announced a political programme aimed at bringing down Assad followed by a parliamentary election after a year's transition.
The SNC said at the time its goal was to "build a democratic, pluralistic, and civil state by ... breaking down the existing regime, including all of its operatives and symbols."
The SNC, the country's largest and most representative opposition group, said another objective was "preserving, protecting, and enhancing the peaceful nature of the popular revolution."
It would try to forge a "pluralistic... parliamentary republic... based on the principles of equal citizenship with separation of powers... the rule of law, and the protection and guarantee of the rights of minorities."
Senior State Department officials said later that the SNC leaders had put a top priority on reaching out to minorities but had to persuade them to overcome fears that the majority Sunni Muslims would stage a sectarian takeover.
The leaders said the Assad clan, hailing from the minority Alawite sect and determined to stay in power, were fanning such fears with Christians and other Alawites in order to stay in power, the officials told reporters.
The Assads' survival strategy even threatened to spark a civil war, they added.
A senior State Department official quoted one SNC leader as telling Clinton: "It is the regime that is trying to militarise, sectarianise and Islamicise our revolution for dignity."
Another said the SNC made clear "they are seeking a peaceful, orderly transition, in which Assad and his family and key regime figures would leave Syria after transferring power to a provisional government with limited authorities."
The end result would be "a Syrian-designed democracy," he added.
Clinton "commended the SNC for offering a transition plan that is measured, deliberate and utterly devoid of revenge," the official said.
She reportedly said the approach should appeal to Syrians inside and outside the country, but noted: "What is required is the cooperation of a regime that has shown no sign to date of any values beyond its own preservation."
The SNC, which was formally founded in Istanbul on October 2, is made up of Assad's opponents, including the committees organising protests on the ground, the Muslim Brotherhood as well as various Kurdish and Assyrian parties.
So far it has only been recognised by Libya, where the National Transitional Council is now in power following a revolt that ousted dictator Moamer Kadhafi.
Washington is non-committal about recognition as it looks at a range of Syrian opposition groyps, but one US official said the United States views the SNC as a "legitimate and leading" opposition group.
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