Morocco to host next Friends of Syria meet

Morocco's foreign affairs minister,  Saad Eddine El Othmani, announced on Friday in Paris that the next meeting of the Friends of the Syrian people international group will be held in Morocco in the summer. The participants in the Paris meeting, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, welcomed the move. According to press reports in Rabat, Othmani, who represented Morocco in the Paris talks, said the conference would most likely be in August.  The final communiqué of the meeting in Paris on July 6 asserted that the participants are demanding the UN Security Council to "impose measures" to ensure respect for this decision. The conference called for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, while participant states said they would increase their support for the Syrian opposition. The statement also called on the Syrian opposition to "continue to focus on common goals", after a conference in Cairo exposed deep rifts between the various rebel factions. In the 16-month uprising against Assad's regime, over 15,000 people are believed to have died according to activists.