BEIRUT — Syria’s military tightened its suffocating siege on Hama on Saturday in its drive to crush the center of the anti-regime uprising, even as the foreign minister promised that free parliamentary elections would be held by the end of the year in a gesture of reform.
Like previous reform promises, the new announcement is unlikely to have much resonance with Syria’s opposition, which says it has lost all confidence in President Bashar Assad’s overtures.
The four-year term of the current parliament expired this year, and Assad is expected to set a date for elections before the end of 2011.
Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem pledged to press ahead with reforms and said the new parliament “will represent the aspirations of the Syrian people.”
“The ballot box will be the determining factor, and it will be up to the elected parliament to review adopted draft bills to decide on them,” he said during a meeting with Arab and foreign ambassadors in Damascus.
But Syria was coming under increasing international criticism over the bloody siege of Hama, launched a week ago after residents calling for Assad’s ouster took over the city of 800,000 and barricaded it against regime forces.
Activists said Saturday that security forces killed 24 people across the country a day earlier.
Gulf Arab countries broke their silence on the bloodshed, calling Saturday for an immediate end to the violence and for the implementation of “serious” reforms in Syria. In a statement posted on its website, the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council expressed deep concern and regret for “the escalating violence in Syria and use of excess force.”
A spokesman said in a news release Saturday that U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon urged Assad by phone to stop the use of military force against civilians immediately.
In Damascus and other cities, mourners held funerals Saturday for several of those killed Friday. Amateur videos posted online by activists showed crowds marching in the funeral procession of a teenager who was killed in the Damascus neighborhood of Midan. Some of the mourners shouted “Allahu Akbar,” or God is great, and “there is no God but God and Assad is his enemy.”
Syria’s state-run SANA news agency said funerals also were held for six soldiers and members of the security forces who were gunned down by “terrorist groups” and gunmen in Homs, Hama and the northern province of Idlib.
