Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi castigates Syrian regime as oppressive

Speaking at the 16th non-aligned summit in Tehran, the Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi has condemned the “oppressive” Syrian regime and expressed solidarity with the Syrian people.

• His comments were a clear rebuke to Iran, Syria’s key regional ally, on the first visit to the country by an Egyptian leader in decades. Morsi also said:
• “The bloodletting in Syria is the responsibility of all of us and we should know that this blood cannot stop without an active interference by all of us to stop this”
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• President Morsi later reportedly had talks with his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Syria but no further details were released.

• • The Syrian foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem walked out during Morsi’s speech (although he initially denied it was in protest) and accused him of “interference in Syrian affairs”. Moallem also accused Morsi of instigating the continued shedding of Syrian blood.

• •Meanwhile in Syria itself, Syrian rebels claim to have shot down a Mig warplane in Idlib. Video footage purported to show the wreckage of the jet, a pilot ejecting and the dead pilot. A Syrian military source denied that a Syrian warplane had been shot down.

• • A resident of Kafr Batna, in Damascus suburbs, told the Guardian the district was under siege from shelling and shooting by government troops and they feared troops would storm the area. “The example of Daraya is so scary,” Anass al-Demashiqi said via Skype.

• • Jordan has reportedly deported 200 refugees back to Syria after they went on the rampage late on Tuesday to to protest at conditions at the Za’atri refugee camp. Save the Children warned today that the Za’atri refugee camp in northern Jordan is “chronically underfunded”.

• • More than 8,000 members of the Syrian security forces have been killed since the uprising broke out in March last year, the director of the Tishrin military hospital in Damascus said today. Activists claim that more than 20,000 people have been killed in total.

• • Syrian government forces have dropped bombs and fired artillery at or near at least 10 bakeries in Aleppo province over the past three weeks, killing and maiming scores of civilians who were waiting for bread, Human Rights Watch said.
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• It said: “The attacks are at least recklessly indiscriminate and the pattern and number of attacks suggest that government forces have been targeting civilians.”

• • Amnesty International has called on people to help in “countering the Syrian government’s attempt to make people disappear”.
  
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• On International day for the victims of enforced disappearances, it said: “Victims are disappeared without a trace – with governments careful not to leave behind any trail of official records or information, deepening families’ despair and banking on to us forget.”