...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, and William Tell...
on Wednesday.
"They claim to represent the Syrian people. If you want to speak in the name of the Syrian people, you should not be traitors to the Syrian people, agents in the pay of enemies of the Syrian people," Muallem said in a strongly-worded speech as the meeting got under way in the lakeside city of Montreux.
He fired a broadside at the reform-shy Gulf monarchies which back the revolt against the regime of Syrian
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Supressor of the Damascenes...
, which began after a crackdown on peaceful Arab Spring-inspired protests in 2011 and has morphed into a sectarian war.
"It is regrettable to me and to the people of Syria that representatives of states in this room are sitting with us today, while blood is on their hands -- countries that have sent weapons ... encouraged and financed terrorism," Muallem said.
"They have not looked at their own glass houses before throwing stones," he said.
"The mask has fallen and we can see the real face of what they want -- to destabilize Syria .. by exporting terrorism -- to hide their barbaric behavior," he thundered.
Syria slams the role of foreign Sunni Islamist fighters who have flocked to the war-torn country -- though Assad is backed by Shiite Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah -- and says it is locked in a "war on terror".
"Who told you that Syria wants to go back 1,000 years," he said, warning against extreme Islamism.
"It will not stop in Syria," he said.
He singled out Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi only they haven't dumped him yet...
for backing the opposition.
"All of this would not have happened if it had not been for Erdogan -- they did not know that magic would turn against the magician one day -- terrorism has no religion," he said.