Syrian National Council to Head to U.N. Seeking Intervention

The opposition Syrian National Council plans to send a delegation to the United Nations to press the U.N. Security Council for intervention in unrest-swept Syria, an SNC spokesman told Agence France Presse on Sunday.

"The Council will send a delegation to the United Nations to submit a letter calling for the referral of the Syria file to the Security Council to protect civilians," Mohammed Sermini said in Cairo.

The SNC's executive bureau was meeting in the Egyptian capital to put the finishing touches to a "counter-report" to one that the Arab League was to receive later Sunday from the head of an observer mission to Syria, he said.

"We fear that the Arab League report is not objective," he said.

The SNC document is more than 100 pages long and based on testimony provided by "15 observers" in Syria and activists on the ground, Sermini said, adding the report would be unveiled at a news conference on Sunday evening.

"It will reveal truths" about the crisis in Syria where a government crackdown on dissent has killed thousands since the anti-regime protest movement erupted in mid-March, he said.

The U.N. estimates that more than 5,400 Syrians have been killed in the crackdown while activists and rights groups say more than 500 died since Arab League observers were deployed in Syria late December to stem the bloodshed.

The Arab League has been trying to organize a congress of Syrian opposition factions and has called for a national dialogue between the regime of President Bashar Assad and his opponents.

But Sermini reiterated the SNC position that talks with Assad are out of the question.

"The Syrian National Council maintains the demands of the revolution and will not engage in a dialogue until after the departure of Assad," he said.