A State Department reception granted to a small U.S.-based Syrian opposition group last week has divided Syrian dissidents, with some expressing concern that Washington is lining up their country as the next candidate for regime change. The Reform Party of Syria (RPS) put out a statement in Beirut hailing its meeting Thursday with deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs Elizabeth Cheney which it said had "had a galvanizing effect on the Syrian community as a whole.""They realized the call for democracy in Syria is a matter being taken seriously at the highest levels of the Bush administration," said the statement. But the group's readiness to identify so openly with a U.S. administration which enforces unilateral sanctions against Syria was a step too far for several Damascus-based dissidents. The National Democratic Rally, an alliance of five banned opposition groups, said it opposed anyone "asking foreign parties to overthrow the regime."
"We're campaigning against a totalitarian system and for democratic change," its leader Hassan Abdel-Azim said. "But at the same time we reject any aggression or occupation of our country," he said in allusion to the U.S.-led invasion of neighboring Iraq in 2003. "Change is the responsibility of the national democratic opposition" he added. Abdel Azim, leader of the Democratic Arab Socialist Union, a dissident group, criticized "certain people inside the regime" for resisting democratic reforms and so encouraging opponents like the RPS leader to "seek foreign support." Leading human rights lawyer Anwar Bunni said he had no objection to the Washington meeting. "I'm in favor of any effort to halt human rights violations," he said. But pro-reform writer Michel Kilo expressed strong opposition. "We're struggling for democracy in Syria to make our country stronger in the face of the U.S. threat, not so that it is torn apart by the Americans."