Syria's fractured opposition elected a National Salvation Council to present a united challenge to President Bashar al-Assad's rule as he intensified a military campaign to crush an uprising against his rule.
The opposition meeting in Istanbul took place on Saturday, a day after the biggest demonstrations so far in Syria's four-month uprising, during which at least 32 civilians were killed, including 23 in the capital Damascus.
"We shall work towards reaching out towards other opposition groups to lead the country towards the democratic vision we have," prominent opposition figure Haitham al-Maleh told Reuters after the one-day meeting.
Despite disputes over whether to form a government-in-waiting or wait to see how the uprising unfolds, the meeting concluded with the election of a 25-member National Salvation council composed of Islamists, liberals and independents.
Of the close to 350 people who attended the opposition congress, many were Syrian exiles who had left the country years earlier.
The meeting had hoped to join members of the opposition inside Syria via a video link to a conference in Damascus, but that was called off after Syrian security forces targeted the venue as part of Friday's crackdown in the capital.
The Council will meet today to appoint an 11-member committee, and a further meeting with be held in a bid to tighten bonds between the various opposition groups.
The West has criticised Assad's crackdown on four months of protests demanding political freedoms. Syrian forces killed one protester and wounded five on Saturday when they opened fire at demonstrators in the eastern border town of Albu Kamal near Iraq's Sunni heartland.
The official state news agency said "armed terrorist groups" killed three security personnel on Saturday in Albu Kamal, a poor town despite being surrounded by oil fields, where tens of thousands of people rallied on Friday to demand Assad's removal.
Human rights campaigners said Syrian forces killed at least three other civilians in the rest of Syria on Saturday when they fired at funerals for protesters killed the day before.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, visiting Turkey, said Assad's repression was "troubling".
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