Talk:National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces

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perhaps a bit pedantic, but the name would be slightly different if a strict translation would be applied: National (or Patriotic, etc.) Coalition (or Alliance) of the Forces of the Syrian Revolution and Opposition. Since 'Syrian' is in feminine gender, it can't relate to the Coalition, as Coalition is a masculine noun in Arabic. Rather it refers to Revolution and Opposition (two feminine nouns). Using the name 'Syrian National Coalition' brings the association very close to 'Syrian National Council', with the risk of creating confusion. Could we move the article? --Soman (talk) 10:17, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Washington Post calls it the National Coalition for Revolutionary Forces and the Syrian Opposition. Reuters goes with Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces.--Comet21 (talk) 14:14, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In other words, there is no established English naming habit and we can thus procede to use a grammatically correct translation as the title. --Soman (talk) 20:32, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The BBC calls it the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, which is why I moved the title there. It's also close to a literal rendering. We probably shouldn't make up our own, though.

Turkish WP claims English is co-official and that the English name is "Opposition Syrian Revolution Coalition Forces". However, that phrase gets no other Ghits.

Created a rd for the W.Post rendering. — kwami (talk) 21:16, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces" is the official name according to website http://www.etilaf.org and facebook page https://www.facebook.com/SyrianNationalCoalition --Tonemgub2010 (talk) 23:37, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Probably not the best name, since it's ungrammatical, and they might fix it later. — kwami (talk) 23:47, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The information contained in the Article, that the USA has recognized the Coalition as the "legitimate Government" of Syria is SERIOUSLY WRONG. Check the Note from the Department of State, it says no such a thing, though it endorses the coalition. For a starter, the Coalition itself has not claimed to be a Government in-waiting or anything of the sort (check their "12 points" signed in Doha). I believe the information is also not true of the Arab League and most - probably all - of the countries listed. SOMEONE PLEASE VERIFY ALL THAT INFORMATION, because there are several nuances the the countries and organization's declarations, and most, if not all of them, fall short of recognizing the coalition as a "Government". The information was put up hastily and very innacurately. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.101.134.146 (talk) 08:03, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Do we have a ref that the Arab League rec's the NC as the legitimate govt of Syria, or only as the voice of the opposition? For that matter, does the GCC really rec is as the govt, or are the news reports misleading? — kwami (talk) 23:49, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think we settled that in the map. Sopher99 (talk) 00:47, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The WSJ just said they recognized the coalition as the official voice of the opposition. [1] is closer, but I'm still not sure. I've removed the Arab League members from the table and fixed the other statement so it agrees with the source. Ryan Vesey 03:01, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Rather than use the current system. What would people think about using single numbers and giving states that recognized the coalition as the legitimate government on the same day precedence in alphabetical order. That is how it is done in International recognition of the State of Palestine. To be clear, Bahrain would be listed first, followed by Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Bahrain would be listed 1 with Kuwait 2 etc. Ryan Vesey 03:07, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If we don't want a range, then we could number them all 1, then number the next country to recognize as 7. That's what's normally done with ties. — kwami (talk) 04:02, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That makes better sense. Ryan Vesey 04:40, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Arab League didn't recognised the Coalition. For example, you included Iraq and Algires? Leave it out. Neither of those, including Lebanon, didn't recognised the coalition, what are we talking about? You take claim of the Qatari state TV as a source. The CNN quotes the Qatarti TV, and any other media didn't reported this. It's false ofcousre. --Wüstenfuchs 18:52, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed it again. The second paragraph in international support lays out the Arab Leagues current position. Ryan Vesey 19:00, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Reuters article says that France rec's the group formed on 11 Nov. But their quote of Hollande says that they rec the Syrian National Council, not the coalition. Translation error, maybe? — kwami (talk) 22:25, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Seems so: Le Monde says "J'annonce que la France reconnaît la Coalition nationale syrienne comme la seule représentante du peuple syrien et donc comme le futur gouvernement provisoire de la Syrie démocratique permettant d'en terminer avec le régime de Bachar al-Assad", a déclaré M. Hollande.[2] — kwami (talk) 22:27, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I believe it was only a lapsus linguae by the President Hollande. Never mind. --Wüstenfuchs 22:30, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I replaced both refs. If we really want to include the Thomson Reuters one, then we would have to NPOV it - Thomson Reuters claims that ... and France 24 and Europe 1/Thomson Reuters claim something else. But France 24 and Europe 1/Thomson Reuters give a quote which is most likely original (untranslated, cf Ahmadinejad's statement about wanting a certain government to disappear like the Soviet Union disappeared...), so I think we are justified to remove the dubious reference without this counting as OR. The Le Monde ref is not so useful - Le Monde is a mainstream French newspaper, but it chose to make its articles unarchivable - sooner or later this particular article is likely to become subscription-only, making verification by future Wikipedians more difficult. Boud (talk) 22:57, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm just wondering if "unique representative" might sound like a better translation than "only representative" - "unique" sounds to me a bit more like standard diplomatic terminology than "only". "Legitimate" is not there in the quote. Boud (talk) 23:07, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Or "single representative". Boud (talk) 23:23, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"future government" vs "[present] government": In the France 24 quotes, in later sentences Hollande refers to "gouvernement provisoire" - without "future", but talking in the future tense - and then plain "government" with France 24 adding its own interpretation "[provisoire]". Given that he starts out saying "future interim government", I think the subsequent statements are only intended to be abbreviated references to what he has already said. So we cannot say that he is recognising the NCSROF as "the government" of Syria. IMHO it's reasonable to include this in the list - we can't expect each government to use exactly the same language - "only representative" clearly means de-recognising the Bashar al-Assad government/ex-government (according to POV). Boud (talk) 23:23, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Remember Libya recognized even old SNC

What should be done about the article,

I imagine most of the rec would transfer. Perhaps some kind of merger? — kwami (talk) 19:04, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We should assume that the recognitions automatically transfer over without a source saying that. I think it's worth keeping it as a separate article as a historical record of the status prior to the merger. If this article gets too large we could consider splitting the recognitions from this article and merging it into (a renamed)

TDL (talk) 01:51, 15 November 2012 (UTC)[reply

]

We should not assume that. That is original research. Ryan Vesey 02:13, 15 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, that was a typo. I meant to say that we shouldn't assume that the recognitions would transfer over in response to kwami.

TDL (talk) 03:01, 15 November 2012 (UTC)[reply

]

Tunisia and Libya delay recognizing Syrian opposition - www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/22/us-syria-crisis-tunisia-libya-idUSBRE8AL0P220121122 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.9.72.208 (talk) 18:50, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Per [4], Turkish and Italian rec. is not diplomatic, but like the political rec. of the USA. These should not be listed in the table (unless we include all such countries, which we currently do not), and should be chartreuse on the map. — kwami (talk) 19:20, 19 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

http://www.aa.com.tr/en/headline/100601--turkish-foreign-minister-says-his-country-recognizes-syrian-national-coalition-as-the-sole-legitimate-representative-of-syrian-people

http://www.france24.com/en/20121115-turkey-recognises-new-syrian-opposition

http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=456953

Turkey recognized it as sole legitimate representative, (ceasing recognition of Syrian government). Sopher99 (talk) 19:46, 19 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if this means they ceased to recognise the Syrian governemnt... a few days ago Bashar al-Assad congratulated Oman's Sultan on Oman's National Day. Oman is amongst those countries that recognised the Coalition as a "sole" representative. --Wüstenfuchs 20:11, 19 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

1- Thats Syria's recognition of Oman, not Oman's recognition of Syria. 2. Bahrain congratulated Gaddafi on Eid last year, even though Bahrain recognized the NTC Sopher99 (talk) 20:25, 19 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The source that I have added is a 12 November Le Monde blog post by Ignace Leverrier who seems to be a former French diplomat. It's not ideal, but it's better than nothing. Le Monde presumably controls who it allows to blog and someone falsely claiming to be a former diplomat would probably be debunked, so this falls under the blog exception clause, at least for the moment. I didn't change spellings, except for s/Hussien/Hussein/. Some clues for tidying up what's left:

• Wasel al-Choummari is on Leverrier's list; Wasel al-Shamali is unsourced in the present version of the article. This could be a transliteration problem - English "sh" is normally written "ch" in French, though confusing "l" and "r" is not so common in these languages (even though the sounds are close) - but more sources should become available to avoid OR.
• Walid al-Bunni is not on Leverrier's list - Anwar al-Bunni is a notable Syrian human rights lawyer.
• Riyad Hijab
  is Wikipedia-notable but not on Leverrier's list. Maybe he was added to the NCSROF later?
• Are Khaled Abu Salah and Khaled Saleh really two different people? They are numbers 31 and 49 of Leverrier's article. Anyone starting articles on them should consider disambiguating right from the start.

Boud (talk) 23:54, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Tonemgub2010's info very strongly overlaps with the source I have added (Leverrier), but more sources would still be good. Boud (talk) 23:59, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Here you go: Source 1 and Source 2.

• His name is Wasel al-Shamali, not Wasel al-Choummari, Source.
• It's Walid al-Bunni, not Anwar al-Bunni. Source
• Riyad Hijab was not named in the list, but assumed because he attended the meeting See here
• Khaled Abu Salah is not the same as Khaled Saleh. Google the two names and you will see.

--Tonemgub2010 (talk) 22:40, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I will remove the speculation about Libya's SNC recognition transferring automatically to the NCSROF: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/22/us-syria-crisis-tunisia-libya-idUSBRE8AL0P220121122 . Boud (talk) 22:36, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The cited sources ([5][6][7]) say that Spain recognizes the National Coalition as "único representante legítimo del pueblo sirio", which very literally translates to "sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people". There is no requirement to cite English-language sources. El Paìs and ABC are among the most reputable broadsheet papers of Spain. There is no doubt that these are reliable sources. --RJFF (talk) 09:51, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

recognizes The NC as "the legitimate representative of the Syrian people"

http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/ud/pressesenter/pressemeldinger/2012/nasjonalkoalisjonen-representerer-det-sy.html?id=709541

I'm Norwegian. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.9.72.208 (talk) 18:57, 9 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

listed twice in list of recognizing countries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.9.72.208 (talk) 18:06, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This unsigned 11 Dec 2012 Daily Telegraph article archived calls NCSROF "the new Syrian opposition council" and even capitalises it further into the article: "the newly formed Syrian Opposition Council". Maybe the idea is that "new" disambiguates between SNC (old) and NCSROF (new)? Well, this is just mainstream Western media, we can't expect facts to be checked too deeply in this sort of RS. Boud (talk) 22:03, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think the 100 countries are the

I think it very unlikely that for instance Lebanon which has a Syrian-backed government, or Iraq who's Prime Minister but particularly coalition partners have been supportive of Assad and actually sent militiamen to fight in this conflict have recognized the SNC instead of Assad. It seems extremely unlikely to me that Hezbollah, which is listed as a combatant in the

Syrian Civil War article on side of Assad, would recognize their enemy as sole representative of syria. I have been looking all over the internet for the last 3 days (since you posted that map) to try and find any shrivel of evidence that either countries have cut relations with Syria in favor of the SNC and found none at all. I did however find some indication that the Syrian ambassador to Lebanon still belongs to Assad rather than the SNC. Can you please show some sources that either of these two countries have cut relations with Syria and recognized the SNC as the sole legitimate representative? I'm very interested to see this.Kermanshahi (talk) 15:10, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply

]

Not all countries who participated in at least one conference recognize that the Syrian National Council as the sole representative of Syria. Better to state individually. A.h. king • Talk to me! 22:26, 22 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This source mentions that 130 international representatives have recognized the coalition. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/12/us-syria-crisis-draft-idUSBRE8BB0DC20121212 I'm not sure what to change the "92 countries" mentioned in the Diplomatic recognition subsection of the International support section of the article. David O. Johnson (talk) 02:57, 15 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I changed it to 130 other countries per the cited articleDavid O. Johnson (talk) 07:29, 16 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, can someone tell me which 130 states are part of Friends of Syria conference? Also what did they recognize it as? Surely not only representative of Syrian people, otherwise a lot of Syrian embassies would have a lot of packing to do. As alternative partner? Representative of opposition to regime of Bashar al-Assad? Or what? EllsworthSK (talk) 02:39, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not all countries who participated in at least one conference recognize that the Syrian National Council as the sole representative of Syria. Better to state individually. A.h. king • Talk to me! 22:27, 22 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Slovenia Recognizes Syrian National Coalition:

http://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/66972-slovenia-recognizes-syrian-national-coalition — Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.201.148.158 (talk) 02:07, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The map is currently protected on Commons due to an edit war over what "recognition" means. It would seem that neither version matches our caption. It would also seem to include a large amount of OR, some reflected in the comments above. I have therefore commented out the map. We really need RS's that all these countries have extended diplomatic recognition to the Coalition as the govt of Syria, and not just announced their support for it eventually becoming the govt of Syria, or other diplomatic double-speak such as being the legitimate representative of the Syrian people while they continue de-facto recognition of Assad. Dark green is supposed to be diplomatic recognition on the map, but it generally doesn't. — kwami (talk) 03:04, 6 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ghassan Hitto is the interim prime minister of this organization, which is neither a State nor some organization of great notability. The interim nature also makes his notability in wikipedia terms to be shaky - as such I propose a merge (with a redirect) until which time as more information and actual notability is established.--Cerejota (talk) 05:17, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• It is recognized as a state by a UN Member, Libya. See other heads of government of partially recognized states with short articles: İrsen Küçük, Leonid Lakerbaia, Abdelkader Taleb Omar, Rostislav Khugayev. Hello32020 (talk) 06:28, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The PM is of the interim government, not of the SNC.GreyShark (dibra) 06:06, 19 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Also worth noting, the Assad regime's embassy has been dismissed from the United States several months ago: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-27287650

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