home
week that Assad immediately
halt military action, and rebels
of the Free Syrian Army
rebels said they would stop
shooting if he pulled heavy weaponry out of cities.
(Reuters)
U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi
Annan has asked the U.N.
Security Council for support in
implementing an April 10
deadline for Syria to partially
implement his peace plan, with a full ceasefire within 48
hours thereafter, despite
Russian objections. Annan told the 15-nation
council behind closed doors
that Syria has agreed to the
idea of such a deadline, which
would include the end of
troop movements toward population centers, the
withdrawal of heavy
weapons and beginning the
withdrawal of troops, U.N.
diplomats told Reuters on
condition of anonymity. Russia earlier rejected Arab
and Western calls for a
deadline to be set for Annan's
plan, with Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov saying,
"Ultimatums and artificial deadlines rarely help matters." Lavrov
added that only the
U.N. Security Council on which
Russia wields veto power
could put any time restrictions
on Syrian President Bashar al-
Assad's compliance with the six-point initiative. "Annan has a Security Council
mandate and it is up to the
U.N. Security Council to decide
who is complying with this
plan and how," he said. The so-called "Friends of Syria"
meeting of Arab and Western
nations in Istanbul agreed this
weekend to ask the United
Nations to give Assad a
deadline to cooperate with Annan's solution to the year-
long conflict. The plan itself demands that
Assad pull out his forces from
major flashpoint cities and
introduce a daily two-hour
ceasefire that could let aid
workers deliver supplies and treat the thousands of injured
civilians. But it puts forward no time
frame in which Assad has to
comply. Lavrov said the peace plan
would not work unless rebel
forces also agreed to halt fire. "The demands should be put
to all sides of the barricades,"
Lavrov said. "We intend to be friends with
both sides in Syria," he added
in reference to Russia's past
support for Assad. The Russian foreign ministry
had earlier issued a statement
saying the "Friends of Syria"
meet contradicted the
objective of reaching a
peaceful settlement by openly siding with the opposition. "The
promises and intentions
to deliver direct military and
logistical support to the
armed... opposition that were
voiced in Istanbul
unquestionably contradict the goals of a peaceful settlement
to the civil conflict in Syria,"
the foreign ministry
statement said. Russia has been under
mounting international
pressure to break its Soviet-
era ties with the Damascus
leadership and call on Assad to
step down. Moscow has in recent weeks
stepped up criticism of the
Syrian strongman and accused
the Damascus government of
failing to follow Russia's
advice on ways out of the conflict. Yet it has also accused the
West of breaking
international law by issuing
unilateral calls for Assad's
ouster. Lavrov said Monday that the
opposition Syrian National
Council (SNC) that the Istanbul
meeting recognized as the
"legitimate representative" of
all Syrians reflected the views of only a fraction of the
country's people. "When decisions are made to
call one group the legitimate
representatives of the Syrian
people, one might jump to the
conclusion that the other
Syrians -- both organizations and the authorities -- are not
legitimate," Lavrov said. "I think this approach is
dangerous and works against
the efforts being put forward
by Kofi Annan."
Homs still targeted Meanwhile the carnage
continued on the ground in
Syria as government forces
bombarded opposition targets
in the city of Homs on Monday
despite Assad's promise to Annan to cease fire and
withdraw his tanks and
artillery. Annan, who met Assad in
Damascus on March 10 to
discuss his peace plan, was due
to brief the U.N. Security
Council in New York later on
Monday on whether he had seen any progress towards its
implementation. "Today doesn't feel much
different than yesterday or
the day before, or the day
before that," opposition
activist Waleed Fares said
from inside Homs. "Shelling and killing." The Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights, a British-based
activist operation which
collates reports from around
Syria, reported 70 people
killed on Sunday, including 12 civilian victims of shelling and
sniper fire in Homs. Nineteen soldiers and 12 rebels
were killed in clashes, it said. Five people were killed on
Monday in the central
province of Homs. In Syria's
second city of Aleppo, a bomb
blast at a kiosk killed the
owner, an Assad supporter, it said. At least two people
were killed and eight
wounded in army
bombardments of villages in
northern Idlib province,
which borders Turkey. Turkish officials said refugees
were crossing the border at a
rate of around 400 a day. Over
40,000 Syrians have taken
refuge in neighboring
countries since the unrest broke out a year ago,
according to U.N. figures. Pro-opposition areas of Homs
have been under assault from
government forces since early
February, making the city a
symbol of the year-long
uprising against decades of Assad family rule and
galvanizing international
efforts to end the bloodshed. Annan demanded last week
that Assad immediately halt
military action, and rebels of
the Free Syrian Army rebels
said they would stop shooting
if he pulled heavy weaponry out of cities. But Assad said he must
maintain security in urban
areas. "It seems like the
government took Kofi
Annan's plan the opposite
way round," Fares said.
"Annan said to withdraw
tanks, they bring more. He said to stop shelling, they
shelled more." The United Nations says Syrian
soldiers and security forces
have killed more than 9,000
people over the past 12
months. Damascus says rebels
have killed 3,000 troops and police. Assad blames the unrest on
foreign-backed "terrorists"
and has put forward his own
reform program, which his
domestic foes and
international opponents have dismissed. On Monday, the official SANA
news agency reported that
plans for an election on May 7
were going ahead in which
Syrians would be able to
choose "whom they see fit to represent them." That is unlikely to mute
international efforts to force
Assad out..
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