New details on the “Syrian Nation Coalition”

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) has reiterated its demands to the German Federal Government and especially the German Foreign Office in Berlin to “immediately review its political, diplomatic, and financial support to the ‘oppositional’ National Coalition of Syria.” The current occasion is the publication of a TV interview with the co-founder and later President of this group, Riad Seif – in which he disclosed the fact that the “Syrian National Coalition” is under the influence of foreign governments. “At the latest since this interview was made public, the Foreign Office and other German authorities must stop all support for this Syrian exile group,” demanded Dr. Kamal Sido, the STP’s Middle East expert.

“In the interview with the oppositional TV station “Syria TV”, Riad Seif reported that the “Syrian National Coalition” has been under the influence of Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Emir of Qatar, and other foreign governments ever since its founding in 2012,” Sido said. Further, The Syrian Islamist Muslim brotherhood controlled all financial contributions from other countries and spent them as they saw fit. Apparently, they hired people who had nothing to do, but were paid between $2,000 and $10,000, as Riad Seif stated in the interview. In fact, the leaders of the “Syrian National Coalition” had nothing to say, and the decision-making authority was granted to a secretary general who was close to the Muslim Brotherhood. Other sources have also reported widespread corruption in the ranks of the “Syrian National Coalition”. Therefore, the STP has been long been demanding Germany to review its support for the group. “We are calling on the Foreign Office to disclose how much money the Syrian exile group has been receiving,” Sido stated.

The “Syrian National Coalition” has in fact become a mere mercenary group in the service of Turkey and Qatar. Their armed militias are not waging war again Assad’s or Russia’s troops in Syria. They only fight against Kurds, Christians, Yazidis, and other ethnic and religious minorities in Syria. They are also responsible for many human rights violations and war crimes in the Syrian-Kurdish region of Afrin, which has been occupied by Turkey since 2018,” Sido explained.

“Syria TV” is an anti-Assad TV station that broadcasts in Arabic, founded in Istanbul in 2018. It is not known who exactly finances the station. Although the station claims to be independent, it is suspected that it is financed by Qatar, Turkey, and the Syrian “Muslim Brotherhood”.

Riad Seif was born in Damascus in 1946. He is a businessman, a dissident, and a longstanding critic of the Assad-Regime. He is also the co-founder of the “Syrian National Coalition” and served as its first Vice President, then as its President for ten months in 2107. In 2011, he was diagnosed with cancer and has been living in Germany ever since. He was awarded the 2003 Human Rights Prize of the City of Weimar.