ISTANBUL
A new religious organization claiming to have the support of "90 percent" of groups opposed to the regime of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad launched itself on Monday in Istanbul.
However, the religious-affairs body denied trying to be a replacement for the Syrian National Coalition, a coalition of opposition groups in Syria widely regarded in the West as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people.
The Syrian Islamic Council, a body made up of prominent Islamic scholars and representatives of Turkmen, Kurdish and Arab groups, said it will focus on dealing with religious matters between opposition groups and work with humanitarian aid foundations.
Council's president, Osama Rifai, said the body has 128 delegations and 21 representatives both from inside Syria and among those forced to flee the country due to the ongoing civil war.
However, the council has claimed that it rejects radical groups such as the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant, or ISIL.
Rifai said the council was founded to function as "religious administration center" and to help Syrian people in the country with the initiatives from Islamic scholars, opinion leaders, writers, unions and foundations that represent moderate Islam.
"Thousands of Syrians were killed brutally, some of them were forced to immigrate to other countries, their houses were demolished and they didn't get any international aid. In the light of these things, we decided to found a council and help them," he claimed.
Another founding member, Fedaa Majzoub, said the council was a religious reference body without any political agenda.
Rifai said the council was not a replacement or an alternative to any group like the Syrian National Coalition; instead the body would support anyone that is not radical, adding they want to help assure stability in the country "after Assad falls."
Rifai said that there were no members of ISIL or the al-Nusra Front among the council.
Asked about Europe's reaction to 'fundamentalists' fighting in Syria, Islamic scholar Sheikh Yassir al-Masaddi said the Syrian opposition was far from "being fundamentalist," claiming rebels were "just trying to defend their country."
Saying that anti-Assad forces had remained peaceful for a long time, Masaddi said the West had applied double standards to Syrians saying that the opposition had been waiting for Syria's air space to be closed for three years.
englishnews@aa.com.tr
