Syria's Assad says no obstacle to running in 2014 election - TV

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is fighting a 2-1/2-year revolt against his rule, said he saw no reason he could not run for the 2014 presidential elections, Al Mayadeen television station reported on Monday.
   
"Personally, I don't see any obstacles to being nominated to run in the next presidential elections," the news channel quoted him as saying in an interview.
   
Al Mayadeen is due to air the full interview with Assad later on Monday.


Syrian refugees :

The number of Syrian refugees in Turkey has exceeded 600,000 and more than 400,000 of them are living outside refugee camps, the Turkish disaster management agency said .                  

"We conducted a study before the Eid (al-Adha) holidays and the numbers have increased above 600,000," said Mustafa Aydogdu, spokesman for the Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate (AFAD).                                                  

Turkey, which shares a 900-km (560-mile) border with Syria, is a strong critic of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and a main supporter of the rebels fighting against him.                                            
It has said it will maintain its "open door" policy to those fleeing the Syrian civil war, now in its third year, although it has closed border crossings from time to time following clashes near the frontier.                                                

About 200,000 Syrians were living in 21 refugee camps, mainly near cities near the border, Aydogdu said, while the rest chose to live in rented accommodation outside the camps.                                                
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said in August Turkey has already spent around $2 billion sheltering the refugees. The United Nations expects another 2 million Syrians to become refugees in 2014 and 2.25 million more to be displaced within the country.                       

Norwegian sisters:                 

Norwegian police have issued international alerts for two teen sisters believed to have traveled to Syria to join the civil war.                           

Police in suburban Oslo on Monday said the sisters, aged 16 and 19, are Norwegian citizens of Somali origin and were last spotted on the Turkish-Syrian border.                    

Police spokeswoman Nina Karstensen Bjoerlo said a wanted notice was issued through Interpol for the older sister and a missing notice for the younger teen because she's a minor.                        
Norwegian newspaper VG said the sisters sent an email to their family Thursday saying they were traveling to Syria to help Muslims "in any way we can."                   

Karstensen Bjoerlo declined to comment on their motive for going but said "we know that Syria is in a state of war so this is disconcerting."                                           

On the field:                          

Syrian opposition activists and state television said government forces have killed a prominent army defector who became a rebel leader.       
                                      
Rami Abdul-Rahman of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Al-Ikhbariya TV said Yasser al-Abboud was killed during fighting on Monday in the town of Tafas, in the southern province of Daraa.                                             

Al-Abboud was among the first high-ranking Syrian army officials to publicly defect and join the rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad's regime. Most military defectors were low-level conscripts, who formed part of the Free Syrian Army.                       

Al-Abboud once commanded the military council of the FSA and led a rebel brigade in Daraa.                
Syria's uprising, now in its third year, began as mostly peaceful protests against Assad but descended into a civil war that has killed 100,000.     


International positions:

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said  it was hard to see how Iran could play a constructive role in planned peace talks in Geneva without backing plans for a transitional government in Syria.
   
Speaking in Paris after talks with Qatari Foreign Minister Khaled al-Attiyah, Kerry said Iran had already not supported the implementation of a first round of talks in Geneva.
   
"So it's very hard to see how Iran can be constructive in the absence of their willingness to come for the purpose of the negotiation," he told reporters. "If they accept Geneva 1, and want to be constructive in helping to set up a transitional government, that's a different issue."

 
REUTERS/AP