DAMASCUS // Fewer than 100 men evacuated from besieged, rebel-held areas of the Syrian city of Homs earlier this month are still being held for questioning, governor Talal Barazi claimed on Thursday.
About 1,400 people were evacuated from the city in several waves starting February 7 after the United Nations supervised a deal between the regime and rebel fighters.
But the government detained hundreds of men between the ages of 15 and 55 because it considered many of them to be potential rebel combatants and said they must obtain security clearance before they can be released.
Mr Barazi said on Thursday that most of the men had been released and that those still being held were “draft evaders, deserters or common law criminals”.
“To start with, there were 522 males aged 15 to 55 years being held for interrogation. Four hundred and thirty-one have since been released, and 91 are still being questioned,” Mr Barazi said.
“Among them are 47 draft evaders and nine deserters. The other 35 are wanted for common law crimes. We are waiting a decision from the authorities on their cases,” he added.
Last April, Syria’s president Bashar Al Assad announced a partial amnesty for “army deserters” provided they handed themselves in within 30 days if in Syria, or 90 if they were outside the country.
According to Mr Barazi, the men “could not benefit from the amnesty because they were unable to leave the Old City of Homs,” which has been under army siege for more than a year and a half.
The United States, meanwhile, on Wednesday accused the Syrian government of undermining the Geneva peace talks by rounding up and arresting the relatives of opposition delegates.
A second round of UN-led peace talks, dubbed Geneva 2, broke down in acrimony earlier this month, threatening international attempts to mediate an end to Syria’s civil war.
International envoys are trying to get the process back on track, but Washington accused the Assad regime of using strong-arm tactics to intimidate opposition negotiators.
“We call on the regime to immediately and unconditionally release all those unfairly arrested,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
“The opposition delegation must be permitted to safely and securely work towards the political transition,” she said.
The impetus behind the Geneva dialogue came from a joint US-Russian diplomatic initiative, but the rival powers remain themselves deeply divided over the crisis in Syria.
The Syrian opposition’s interim prime minister said on Thursday that it was still possible to negotiate an end to the conflict despite the failure of UN-led peace talks.
Ahmed Tomeh was responding to reporters’ questions in Berlin about his hopes for peace after the acrimonious breakdown of the Geneva 2 talks earlier this month.
“I nevertheless still believe in a negotiated solution and hope that the international community will exercise more pressure in future on the Syrian regime,” he told reporters.
Mr Tomeh and several other members of the Syrian opposition’s provisional government met German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin Wednesday.
Agence France-Presse
