Syrian Diplomat Dumps Assad, Joins Opposition

London/Doha, July 12 (QNA) - Senior Syrian diplomat Nawaf Al Fares has abandoned President Bashar Al Assad's government in protest of the excesses of the regime. He is the first senior Syrian diplomat to quit the government as well as resign from the ruling Baath Party, a BCC news report said quoting him. The move comes just a week after a Syrian general from a powerful family close to President Assad also defected. Fares confirmed his defection in a statement broadcast on Facebook and Al Jazeera TV, the report added. In exclusive statement to Al Jazeera, Fares said that his decision came in the wake of what he described as horrible massacre committed against the Syrian people by the regime. With Syrian revolutionary flags behind him, he read out the statement saying he was resigning both as Syria's ambassador to Iraq and as a member of the ruling Baath Party. "I call on all party members to do the same because the regime has transformed it into a tool to oppress the people and their aspirations to freedom and dignity. "I announce, from this moment on, that I am siding with the people's revolution in Syria, my natural place in these difficult circumstances which Syria is going through." In this statement published by Al Jazeera.net, Fares said, "I urge all honest members of this party to follow my path because the regime has turned it (the party) to an instrument to kill people and their aspiration to freedom." Fares also called upon the military to join the ranks of the Syrian revolution, pointing out that such a move would help defend the homeland against any foreign enemy and "not the killing of the people". He also urged all Syrians to come together and be patient in front of what he called attempts by the regime to divide them. A veteran of Assad's rule who held senior positions under the late president Hafez al-Assad, Fares is from Deir al-Zor, the eastern city on the road to Iraq, which has been the scene of a ferocious military onslaught by Assad forces. He was appointed ambassador to Baghdad in 2008. (QNA)