Syrian FM urges foreign journalists to respect rules_美文

Syrian FM urges foreign journalists to respect rules

Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi on Thursday urged foreign journalists to respect regulations in Syria and avoid illegally sneaking into the country, a day after two foreign journalists were reportedly killed in restive Homs province.

In a statement carried by state-run SANA News Agency, Makdissi said foreign journalists should respect all laws regulating the work of journalists in Syria and avoid violating the law by illegally entering Syrian territories and reaching unsecured and troubled places.

In a separate development, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said on Thursday that China will not attend the Friends of Syria conference Friday in Tunisia.

On Wednesday, two foreign journalists were killed when a bomb hit a media center in the Syrian city of Homs.

After the journalists' death, Syrian Information Minister Adnan Mahmoud said he was not aware of their presence in Syria and urged journalists who had entered the country illegally to "go to the nearest center ... to regularize their status".

Meanwhile, Makdissi said that respecting Syrian law would allow visiting journalists to get facilities and recommendations from the Information Ministry over the situation on the ground, adding that the ministry was exerting all-out efforts and had granted licenses to around 200 media delegations over the past two months.

The spokesman said the ministry offered its condolences to the families of the journalists who were killed in Syrian, while rejecting statements that held Syria responsible for the death of journalists who sneaked into the country without notifying the authorities.