Hasan Abdel Azim, spokesman for the National Democratic Gathering (a coalition of five opposition parties), told Bahia Mardini of Elaph that the Damascus Declaration (DD) has responded to a letter they received from the Muslim Brotherhood to explain and justify the its alliance with former VP Khaddam, and is now awaiting their MB's reply (Arabic. Elaph. 4/18/06).
Azim denied that the temporary committee of the DD had asked the MB to choose between it and the National Salvation Front (NSF). He said the issue was not a matter of making the MB choose, instead "there is a need to have certain strictures that govern all the forces of the DD." Arabic. Levant News, 4/17/06).
Abdel Azim also said that the DD still does not have an official spokesperson for the temporary committee as a whole. This was seen as a way for him to deny that he, or anyone else, could speak for the DD, and seemed to apply in particular to Muhyiddine al-Ladqani, the secretary general of the Syrian Democratic Movement, who represented the DD at a panel in London on Saturday (4/15).
The panel was called by the Syrian Committee for National Coordination in Europe to discuss Syria's political future especially after the establishment of the NSF. A representative of the MB was also in attendance.
According to a report on the panel in Elaph, Ladqani adopted a very tough position on Khaddam, warning against any cooperation with him and saying that his final gift to the regime, of which he was a pillar, is to scatter of the opposition (Arabic. Elaph, 4/12/06).
According to the same Elaph report another member of the temporary committee of the DD, Fateh Jamous, a leader of the Communist Labor Party, said that the MB has made a historic error in allying with Khaddam, and that the temporary committee had studied Bayanouni's letter justifying joining the NSF and found it unconvincing.
The representative of the MB at the panel, Obaida al-Nahas, director of the London-based Levant Institute, defended the alliance and claimed that the DD allowed for such an alliance when it suggested working with Baathist defectors. Nahas criticized the current status of DD, saying it is no longer dynamic and its activity has been frozen.
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