[NYTr] Iraqi refugees in Syria protest against US

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

AP via Kuwait Times - Oct 7, 2007
http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=NDc5NTU5MTMw

Iraqi refugees in Syria protest against US

The Associated Press
October 07, 2007

Damascus: Hundreds of Iraqi refugees staged a sit-in in Damascus
yesterday to protest against a recent nonbinding US Senate resolution
that encourages splitting Iraq along ethnic and religious lines.
Carrying Iraqi flags, about 400 protesters gathered in the al-Sayda
Zeinab district. "No for occupation and no for division," read a
placard carried by one refugee. "Dividing Iraq is the start for
dividing all countries in the region," read another.

The nonbinding resolution, adopted last month by the Senate, calls on
the Bush administration to encourage the Iraqi government and
parliament to adhere to the country's constitution, which lays out a
plan for a loose confederation of regions under a limited central
government, leaving the bulk of power with the regions. The resolution
is seen in Iraq and much of the Arab world as a recipe for splitting
the country along sectarian and ethnic lines.

I'm here to express Iraqi national unity. Here, there is the Sunni,
Shiite and the Kurdish under Iraq's umbrella," said Qusai al-Azami, 58.
Sheikh Abdul Nasser al-Janabi, a former member of Iraq's parliament,
said that the political process in Iraq "has failed because it is run
by the United States which seeks to divide Iraq." Al-Janabi was sacked
from the Iraqi parliament after declaring in June that he was joining
Sunni-led insurgents.

The protesters delivered a message to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
calling for a Security Council resolution that would reject the Senate
resolution. It warned that the resolution "endangers Iraq and
neighboring countries." There are around 1.5 million Iraqi refugees in
Syria