U.S. vows to provide $60 mln in ‘non-lethal’ assistance to Syrian opposition

The United States plans for the first time to provide non-lethal aid, including food rations and medical supplies, to opposition fighters battling the Syrian government, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday.

He also said that the U.S. would more than double aid to the civilian opposition.

Speaking after talks with the Syrian opposition and the mainly European and Arab countries supporting them, Kerry said that the United States would give the civilian opposition an additional $60 million to help them boost their security measures. Kerry began talks on Thursday in Rome with Khatib to discuss bolstering aid for the rebels.

Head of Syria’s National Opposition Coalition renewed calls for President Bashar al-Assad to step down, telling him to “act like a human for once, and stop killing Syrian children.”

The world is concerned with ‘bearded fighters’ but forgets the blood of the victims dying on a daily basis in Syria, said Khatib, referring to countries reluctant to aid the opposition fearing Islamic radicals among opposition groups.

The Syrian regime forced the opposition to hold arms against it, said Khatib. “No regime bombards its people with scud missiles,” he added.


Ahead of the encounter, Kerry had said that the opposition fighting President Bashar al-Assad’s regime needed “more help” and that Washington wanted to speed up the crisis-hit country’s political transition.

“We are examining ways to accelerate the political transition,” Kerry told a joint press conference with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on Wednesday, before flying to Rome for a key “Friends of Syria” meeting.

“We think it’s very important that more of our assistance gets to areas that have been liberated from the regime,” he said.

A State Department official however refused to confirm the report, which would mark a new step in the non-lethal aid, such as communications equipment, which the U.S. administration has so far supplied to the Syrian opposition.

“We’ve really got to give the diplomacy a little bit of breathing room here as the talks play out in Rome,” State Department deputy acting spokesman Patrick Ventrell said.

The Syrian opposition, which has been increasingly frustrated by the U.S. refusal to supply it with arms in its almost two-year war against Assad, had earlier this week refused to attend the Rome talks.

It was cajoled back on board by pledges from Kerry and his British counterpart William Hague, that the meeting would not just be a talking shop but would discuss concrete steps forward.

The Washington Post stressed that direct military aid remained off the table, but suggested the United States may meet another opposition demands and channel some of its humanitarian aid directly to opposition fighters.

The United States has worked to unify the Syrian opposition, and ensure it is representative of all Syrians, while seeking to weed out extremist elements.

“We think they’ve made significant progress,” Ventrell told reporters, adding that “in the spaces... that they’ve been able to control, they’re helping to get the governing institutions up and running.”