The Coordination Committee is largely based inside Syria, and was formed in 2011 at a congress in
Damascus. It gathers all of the political parties of the
National Democratic Rally, formerly Syria's main
secular opposition coalition, and few other organizations. It has a generally
secular membership, although not exclusively so. Most member organizations have a leftist profile, while some are also strongly
Arab nationalist or
Kurdish nationalist. Damascus-based lawyer Hassan Abdul Azim, the chairman, is also the spokesperson of the National Democratic Rally and the chairman of the
Democratic Arab Socialist Union, a banned
Nasserist opposition party. The Coordination Committee's spokesperson abroad is
Haytham Manna, a
Paris-based author and
human rights activist, who spent three decades as a
human rights activist and spokesperson for the
Arab Commission for Human Rights (ACHR), which he helped create. The NCC has been hosted by
Russia for talks with the Syrian government. During these talks in April 2012
SANA, the official news agency, claimed that the NCC and the government were in widespread agreement.
Post-China meeting In September 2012 the NCC met with
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, and called for a four-point plan which included political transition. Upon returning to Syria via
Damascus International Airport, two of the NCC members who had been at the meeting in
China along with another NCC member who had come to collect them were detained by the Syrian government, with all contact being lost with them since 5:30 on 20 September. The NCC spokesman Khalaf Dahowd described this detainment as kidnapping, with the NCC executive further elaborating that they believed the three members to have been "forcibly disappeared" by the Syrian
Air Force Intelligence Directorate. despite having detained five other NCC members for the first time on Monday that week. and for what
The Washington Post described as the first time that the NCC formally called for the "overthrowing [of] the regime with all its symbols". • A rejection of sectarianism. the NCC on 10 August 2014 signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the remaining Popular Front, calling for ″comprehensive grassroots change, which means the transition from the current authoritarian regime to a democratic pluralistic system within a democratic civil State based on the principle of equal citizenship to all Syrians regardless of their ethnic, religious and sectarian identities.″
2019 On 25 March 2019, the NCC condemned the
United States'
recognition of the disputed
Golan Heights region as part of the
State of Israel, calling on "the governments of the world and its peace-loving people" to oppose the US position.
2023 In June 2023, reports of cooperation between the NCC and the
Syrian Democratic Council, the political organization of the
Kurdish-controlled areas in Northern Syria, emerged. ==Role within the Syrian opposition==