STATE Dept: "... There’s still a lot we don’t know about the opposition in Syria..."

Excerpt:

QUESTION:  Mark, on the opposition and the ambassador, you said that he’s in contact with them.  Is he actually seeing them physically?  Because one would think that with all of this repression, it would be highly dangerous for them to be in contact.  And then also --

MR. TONER:  Right.

QUESTION:  -- just give us a thumbnail again of who they are, what they want.

MR. TONER:  Well, there’s – in terms of your thumbnail, there’s still a lot we don’t know about the opposition in Syria.  There were these meetings last week in Turkey.  We understand that these are primarily internal meetings, inclusive of individuals coming together to form a very preliminary opposition.  There’s – short of – the ambassador is obviously involved, but our other Embassy personnel on the ground at Damascus are trying to determine what some of these various groups are calling for, trying to get a sense of how they’re coming together, and also trying to determine what the popular support is for some of these groups.

It’s a very fluid situation and obviously, these groups are under tremendous pressure.  So I agree; there’s a lot of sensitivity about our contacts with them, and there’s obviously – as I said, they feel a great deal of angst about their security.

QUESTION:  And the Syrian Government has not told the U.S. to stop meeting or contacting them?

MR. TONER:  Again, these are the kinds of contacts that we would expect in any diplomatic mission around the world to maintain.  This is something that we do when we’re overseas.  As far as I’m aware, there’s not been direct pressure.  We have seen some protests; they’ve not been – some public protests that were geared towards other – or targeted – targeting other embassies, but not the United States.

QUESTION:  Have there been any meetings with opposition groups in Washington in recent days?

MR. TONER:  Any meeting with opposition groups?

QUESTION:  Any meeting with Syrian opposition groups in Washington in recent days?

MR. TONER:  I can check on that.  I don’t know.