The UN General Assembly on Wednesday condemned the Syrian government’s “escalation” of the country’s war and backed the role of the opposition coalition in transition talks.

But Russia, Syria’s key diplomatic ally, fiercely opposed the resolution, branding it a potential obstacle to peace negotiations expected to be held in Geneva next month.

And only 107 countries in the 193-member assembly backed the text, down from 133 when the last Syria vote was held in August.

The United States, Britain and France joined Arab countries in supporting the resolution which expressed “outrage at the rapidly increasing death toll,” now estimated at more than 80,000 by Syrian activists.

Russia, China, Syria, Iran and North Korea were among 12 countries to oppose the resolution. Fifty-nine countries, including Brazil, South Africa, India and Indonesia abstained.

The assembly “strongly condemns the continued escalation in the use by the Syrian authorities of heavy weapons”, including “ballistic missiles” against civilians, said the resolution, which was drawn up by Qatar and other Arab states.

On political efforts to end the war, the assembly demanded all sides work to “implement rapidly” a communique agreed by the major powers in Geneva in June last year laying out the steps toward a transitional government.

The resolution welcomed the opposition Syrian National Coalition “as effective representative interlocutors needed for a transition.” This phrase infuriated Russia which said it would encourage the opposition to step up “armed actions” against the Syrian government.

The Arab League has recognized the coalition as Syria’s legitimate government. There was no recognition in the UN text but Arab states are said to be planning moves to get the coalition into Syria’s UN seat later this year.

Russia and the United States agreed to press for a new international conference on the war which is expected to be held in Geneva next month. Russia’s UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin wrote to all 193 UN members ahead of the vote to slam the resolution as “one-sided and biased”.

Russia and China have vetoed three UN Security Council resolutions, proposed by western nations, aiming to step up pressure on President Bashar al-Assad over the conflict.

And Western nations strongly backed the new assembly resolution.

“The consequences of this crisis are growing more dire not only within Syria, but across the region,” said deputy US ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo, who added that backing the resolution was in line with efforts to set up a peace conference.

France’s UN ambassador Gerard Araud said the resolution would help the opposition to unite for any peace conference.

“This is a substantive draft that reflects the horrific situation on the ground and pushes for a political solution,” said Germany’s UN ambassador Peter Wittig.

Qatar’s UN ambassador Meshal Hamad Al-Thani called the resolution “fair and balanced” but the text was slammed by Syria’s UN ambassador Bashar Jaafari as an attempt “to escalate the crisis and fuel violence in Syria.”

The UN assembly passed a resolution condemning Syria in August last year with 133 countries in favour, 12 votes against and 31 abstentions.

Diplomats said the lower number voting in favor this time reflected the international divisions over Syria and doubts about how it can be ended.

The resolution called for “urgent” international financing to help countries struggling with more than 1.4 million Syrian refugees. Jordan in particular has said the refugees are now a threat to its stability.

AFP - 05/15/2013

Joint UN-Arab League representative meets with Syrian president after dozens are killed in air strike on a bakery queue.

Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN-Arab League envoy to Syria, has met with Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, in Damascus, a day after an air strike killed dozens of civilians in Hama province.

“I had the honour to meet the president and as usual we exchanged views on the many steps to be taken in the future,” Brahimi told reporters at his hotel in Damascus on Monday.

“Assad expressed his views on the situation and I told him about my meetings with leaders in the region and outside,” said the veteran Algerian diplomat, who took over his present task from former UN chief Kofi Annan.

Assad described his meeting with Brahimi as “friendly and constructive”, according to state television.

“The government is committed to ensure the success of all efforts aimed at protecting the sovereignty and independence of the country,” Assad said. State news agency SANA said Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, his deputy Faisal Muqdad and presidential advisor Buthaina Shaaban all attended Assad’s meetings with Brahimi.

Brahimi arrived in Syria on Sunday from neighbouring Lebanon. He had last visited the country on October 19.

Bakery air strike

On Sunday, anti-government activists in the town of Halfaya said that at least 90 people had been killed in an air strike on a bakery in the central Syrian town.

Halfaya was seized by rebels few days ago as part of a campaign to push into new territories in the 21-month-old revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.

Mousab al-Hamadee, an activist in the suburbs of Hama, told Al Jazeera that Halfaya and nearby towns have witnessed heavy shelling since rebels began advancing in the province.

Samer al-Hamawi, an activist in the town, said that more than 1,000 people had been queueing at the bakery. Shortages of fuel and flour have made bread production erratic across the country, and people often wait for hours to buy loaves.

“We hadn’t received flour in around three days so everyone was going to the bakery today, and lots of them were women and children,” Hamawi said.

‘Terrorist attack’

Syrian state media, however, disputed that account, saying instead that a “terrorist” group had carried out the attack.

SANA, the country’s official news agency, citing residents of the town located in the central province of Hama, said: “An armed terrorist group attacked the town of Halfaya committing crimes against the population, killing many women and children.”

The report added that the Syrian army intervened during the assault and “killed and wounded many terrorists”, a term Syrian officials and state media use to refer to rebels fighting to oust the Assad government.

“Terrorists then shot video images to accuse the Syrian army when the international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi arrived in Syria,” the agency said.

The opposition Syrian National Council blamed the international community for “being responsible for this massacre… by not supporting the Syrian people”.

Both sides in the Syrian conflict have been accused by rights groups of carrying out attacks that could amount to war crimes, including summary executions and attacks on civilians.

12/24/2012

26/10/12

• Arab League: Observers deployed in late December to oversee compliance with a peace plan that included an end to violence, the withdrawal of troops from the streets and the release of political prisoners. But the monitoring mission was suspended after little more than a month as fighting continued.
• Kofi Annan: Six-point plan for Syria included the withdrawal of troops and heavy weapons from urban areas, and an open-ended ceasefire that was meant to take effect on 12 April and lead to peace talks. But neither side fully adhered to the plan and violence continued to escalate.
• Lakhdar Brahimi: New UN-Arab League envoy toured the Middle East in October, seeking support for a ceasefire over the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha, which starts 26 October. The truce, backed by the UN Security Council, is designed to kick-start political reconciliati

22/10/12

By: Al Bawaba News

Fighting flared up Monday in Syria with new attempts of the army to remove the rebels from their strongholds, as an Arab diplomat expected there are slim chances of achieving a cease-fire this week.

On Sunday, after talks in Damascus with President Bashar al-Assad, the UN and Arab League envoy and Lakhdar Brahimi called on the belligerents to “unilaterally” cease fire “from today or tomorrow “for the Muslim feast of Eid Al-Adha, which is celebrated from October 26 to 29.

He stressed that it was a “personal initiative” and not a detailed plan of peace to stop the bloodshed that killed 34,000 people, according to an NGO.

On his part, Deputy Secretary General of the Arab League Ahmad bin Hilli said Monday that “unfortunately, the hope of establishing a truce in Syria for the holiday is weak.”

“The signs on the ground and the reaction of the Syrian government (…) do not show a real willingness to respond positively to this initiative,” he said.

Echoing these remarks, the Syrian regime’s troops, backed by tanks, have been trying to retake control on several towns, which fell into the hands of rebels in Idleb, Aleppo (north), in the province of Damascus, Deraa (south ) and Homs (center), said the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (SOHR).

Loyalist forces also bombarded with artillery Harasta twon where rebels are holed up near the Syrian capital, and tried to take it by storm, the NGO said in the wake of a new suicide car bomb in Damascus that killed at least 13 people.

In the province of Idleb (northwest), fighting took place near the military base in Wadi Deif, besieged for days by rebels, added the NGO.

This base is located on the eastern outskirts of the strategic town of Maaret al-Noomane, bombed since the dawn by the regime forces. Taken on October 9, this achievement helped the rebels to cut the main road used by the army to send reinforcements to the north.

Elsewhere, a Jordanian soldier was killed during clashes with Islamist militants trying to cross the border with Syria , confirmed Monday the Jordanian Minister of Information. Samih Maaytah said that it was the first death recorded in the ranks of the Jordanian army since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, in March 2011.

Political efforts

During the talks with Mr. Brahimi, Assad reiterated that any political initiative should be based on the “halt of terrorism (..) with the commitment of some countries involved to cease hosting, supporting and arming terrorists in Syria ”

In a related development, the Special Representative of the Russian President Vladimir Putin, Mikhail Bogdanov, was on Monday in Iran to discuss Syria. Tehran and Moscow support the Assad regime and reject any foreign interference in the country.

13/10/12

Turkey’s government threatened to respond to any further attacks by Syrian forces, after shelling across the frontier last week killed five Turkish citizens.

“Turkey will retaliate if Syria violates its border again,” Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said at a news conference today in Istanbul. “We will do what’s necessary. We hope Syria won’t repeat its previous violation of the border.”

Turkey yesterday deployed tanks and missile-defense systems on hilltops overlooking Syria, the state-run Anatolia news agency said, hours after Turkish jet fighters were scrambled to confront a Syrian helicopter that came close to the border. Turkey has threatened to target Syrian forces if they pose a security risk, following the downing of a Turkish fighter jet by Syria in June.

Turkey’s ties with Syria, once an ally, dramatically deteriorated over Turkish backing for Syrian rebels fighting forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. Turkey fired artillery in response to Syrian shelling that killed the five people in the Turkish border town of Akcakale on Oct. 3.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, of which Turkey is a member, on Oct. 9 called the attack on Akcakale “a flagrant breach of international law,” and assured the Turkish government of the alliance’s military support if it’s attacked.

Davutoglu spoke after holding talks with Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations and Arab League special envoy to Syria, and German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle in Istanbul. He didn’t comment on the discussions.

Rebels Advance

Rebel forces in Syria today captured the village of Azmarin in the province of Idlib, near the Turkish border, Anatolia reported. Syrian forces were also attacking the rebel-held village of Derkush in Idlib with tanks and ground forces, the state-run Turkish news agency said.

Turkey shelters 99,500 refugees in camps along the border, and another 14,000 Syrians are waiting to cross into the country, according to Turkey’s Foreign Ministry.

Syrian security forces killed 42 civilians today, the U.K.- based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in an e-mailed statement. At least 33 soldiers also died in fighting across the country, it said. Rebels lost three fighters when they attacked a military convoy in Idlib province, the Observatory said on its Facebook page.

Syrian forces “eliminated a large number of terrorists” in fighting in the northwestern commercial hub of Aleppo, the government-run Syrian Arab News Agency reported. The army also fought rebels who “cut off roads” in Idlib, killing and injuring some of them, the news service said.

Syrian rebels in Aleppo shot down a government MIG jet, the rebels’ Free Syrian Army said on its Facebook page. Footage was posted by rebels showing the wreckage of the aircraft on flames and armed men surrounding it and shouting God is great.

The Observatory for Human Rights in Syria confirmed the rebels’ claim and said the jet had bombed the town of Khan al- Asal in the suburbs of Aleppo.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sibel Akbay in Istanbul at sakbay@bloomberg.net

28/09/12
By John Irish and Amena Bakr

(Reuters) - Western and Arab states demanding Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s exit are under pressure to produce a plan to make that happen, but their unwillingness to act outside a deadlocked U.N. Security Council leaves them looking fractured and powerless.

Foreign ministers and senior diplomats from the “Friends of Syria” - a group that includes the United States, France, Saudi Arabia and Turkey - are due to meet in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly on Friday.

“I just expect ideas to be presented. There will be no concrete plans,” Arab League Secretary General Nabil El-Erabi told Reuters. “Governments are not ready to put plans into action and the Security Council is not agreeing on anything.”

The 18-month uprising against Assad’s rule has killed around 30,000 people, according to activists. The protests have further escalated into an armed insurgency fighting with sectarian overtones that could drag in regional powers.

The General Assembly this week highlighted the global stalemate, with most of the 193-states condemning events in Syria but showing no substance behind their rhetoric.

Russia, which has three times vetoed a Security Council resolution on Syria, stuck to its position: Assad’s departure should not be a precondition for a political transition and under no circumstances will it support a U.N. resolution that could lead to military intervention.

Painting a bleak picture of mediation efforts, U.N.-Arab League representative Lakhdar Brahimi told the Security Council that the situation in Syria is worsening and Assad’s government is clinging to the hope of returning to the past. Five weeks into the job, he admitted he had no plan but “a few ideas.”

Opponents of the Syrian president look less united in their approach. Qatar, one of Assad’s strongest critics, called for an alternative plan and once again urged Arab states to create a regional force to stop the bloodshed.

But Saudi Arabian and Egyptian diplomats, representing the two countries most likely to compose such a force, told Reuters Qatar’s plans are unrealistic.

Egypt, under new Islamist President Mohamed Mursi, tried to bring together Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran - Assad’s main ally in the region - for talks on finding a solution, but failed to get them around the table for the second time.

President Barack Obama, preoccupied with his re-election bid on November 6, barely mentioned Syria in his address to delegates. Former colonial power France urged the U.N. to protect areas “liberated” in Syria, but officials acknowledged behind the scenes the calls were essentially symbolic.

FAILED MEDIATION

Most nations, including Russia and China, agree on the principles of a previously proposed six-point peace plan and framework of an accord struck in Geneva between the permanent members of the Security Council.

Both those plans are stillborn unless an agreement with Russia can be struck on how to ensure they are implemented.

“Unfortunately, all these mediations have failed,” Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told Reuters. “We all support Lakhdar Brahimi, but we have learned that there must be a stronger mandate given to the special representative.”

He said the Friends of Syria was created to defend the rights of the Syrian people and not to undermine the United Nations. The group now seems as hamstrung as the Security Council.

Western and Arab diplomats describe Friday’s meeting as an opportunity to “exchange ideas.” The session will assess efforts to create an all-inclusive transitional government and increase humanitarian and non-lethal aid to the opposition.

France and Turkey have also called for no-fly zones patrolled by foreign aircraft to protect rebel-held areas. With the United States lukewarm, the proposal remains just an idea.

“We have obviously never at any point taken anything off the table,” a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said ahead of Friday’s meeting. “We believe that there is still room for a negotiated transition that leads to an interim government and ultimately to a new Syria. This is not about drawing red lines.”

‘LEGITIMATE CHANNELS’

One senior Gulf Arab diplomat echoed the U.S. position, warning against any direct military intervention. He said Arab states see the United States as key to breaking the deadlock.

“Going through legitimate channels to resolve the issue is the best path to take; any action taken by individual countries will only lead to more violence,” he said.

“The U.S. is the only country that could force Russia to change its position,” the diplomat said, adding that he sees no real move on the crisis until after the U.S. election.‬‪

With the main political opposition bodies fragmented, the Friends of Syria’s main push could centre on developing contacts with the Free Syrian Army (FSA), particularly as its fighters oust Assad’s forces from significant portions of the country.

Western European powers have ruled out supplying weapons to lightly armed Syrian rebels, but France is increasing its links with insurgents. “The more the opposition advances the easier it will become,” the Arab League’s El-Arabi said.

Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been overseeing cross-border movements from a secret liaison centre in Turkey. Turkey denies any direct involvement in sending arms across the frontier. U.N. diplomats say Saudi Arabia and Qatar have transferred weapons to rebels.

“The Friends of Syria can’t do much,” said a Paris-based Arab diplomat. “It’s sit, wait and hope the rebels gain ground.”

(Additional reporting by Andrew Quinn; Editing by Will Dunham)

28/09/12

Ahmet Davutoglu told the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen: “If we do not take certain decisions today…. we will be facing more risks in the future”

The UN’s failure to agree a way to deal with the worsening civil war in Syria has dominated the diplomatic week at the General Assembly in New York.

The UN is only as strong as the collective will of the Security Council - and, on Syria, the five permanent members of the council are deeply divided.

The split is along Cold War lines - France, Britain and the United States want tough sanctions against the regime of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, which they say should go. But their resolutions have been blocked by Russia and China.

The Russians argue that a sudden power vacuum at the top in Syria could make matters even worse for the population.

They also believe that they made a mistake allowing a UN resolution last year against the Gaddafi regime in Libya which the western powers interpreted as a charter for regime change.

Syria’s neighbour, Turkey, is as exposed to the fallout from the war as any country.

It has absorbed 120,000 Syrian refugees, 90,000 of whom are in camps.

At his country’s mission opposite the UN headquarters in New York, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu called again for the establishment of safe zones for refugees in northern Syria - which would take a considerable military operation.

Mr Davutoglu would not be drawn on the fact that inserting a military force into Syria to establish a safe zone would be an act of war.

The risk, he said, was worth taking to get humanitarian access to the huge numbers of displaced people inside Syria.

Establishing the zone would, he said, also send a signal to Assad’s regime to stop attacks that kill or wound civilians.

“If you don’t taken certain measures or certain steps on time in the future you will be facing more risks. Unfortunately, since there was no clear message and decisive position of the international community at the early stages of the crisis, Syrian regime felt confident to do more and more attacks,” he said.

“And if you do not take certain decisions today for the women, children escaping from these attacks, then we will be facing more risks in the future.”

Failure ‘like Bosnia’

The new envoy of the UN and the Arab League, Lakhdar Brahimi, is about to set out for a diplomatic swing through the region.

He gave the UN Security Council a gloomy assessment this week. Afterwards, he told reporters that there was “no disagreement anywhere that the situation in Syria is extremely bad and getting worse, that it is a threat to the region and a threat to peace and security in the world”.

Mr Brahimi said he hoped for a diplomatic opening soon, and his staff say he is working on a peace plan.

One document he likes, which could be part of the ideas he is said to be sharpening, is one of the rare moments of diplomatic agreement between the five permanent members of the Security Council, after a meeting in Geneva in June.

Without naming names, it condemns violence, calls for Syrian sovereignty to be upheld, and most importantly for a ‘transitional governing authority” that could include members of the current government.

The document is a framework that is coherent and makes sense. The only problem then is for Mr Brahimi to get the regime and its enemies to stop trying to kill each other and then sit down to talk.

If he can, he will have scored a remarkable and unexpected diplomatic triumph.

The UN cannot afford another failure. But, without united political action from the Security Council, it is hard to see how Mr Brahimi will be able to do better than the man he replaced as envoy, the former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Turkey’s foreign minister believes that the failure so far to get to grips with the war in Syria is already a “serious failure”. He compared what is happening in Syria to the war in Bosnia 20 years ago.

“For three years such an inactivity in the 1990s in Bosnia resulted in 300,000 casualties, 100,000 rape cases against women, and a huge humanitarian tragedy. And the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon went to Bosnia this year and apologised because of that inactivity,” Mr Davutoglu said.

“I’m afraid maybe after some years another UN secretary general may have to go to Syria to apologise because of this inactivity. The UN Security Council should provide the solution. It should agree on basic principles.”

The UN has never had a magic formula for ending wars. The time for diplomacy often does not come until the sides in a war have exhausted themselves.

It could be that not enough blood has been spilt yet to force the regime and its enemies to talk.

27/09/12

Despite taking different views when it comes to conflicts Syria as well as the rest of the Middle East, the United Nations Security Council and Arab League promised to improve cooperation.

The UN Security Council met Wednesday (26.09.2012) to discuss an initiative led German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle. The international community needs to find a common response to the conflict in Syria, he said.

With the ongoing civil war in Syria and other revolts and uprisings across the Middle East, the five permanent and 10 non-permanent members of the Security Council, which includes Germany, are reaching their limits. They are yet to reach a resolution that would put Syrian President Bashar Assad under pressure.

The Security Council failed to achieve any of its objectives because of disagreement among its five permanent members, said Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby. China and Russia’s have used their veto powers three times to block resolutions that could have led sanctions against Syria.

“Those resolutions have remained dead letter[s].They are not being implemented. The serial killing and bloodshed, destruction, continue unabated,” Elaraby said.

The UN-Arab League Special Representative on Syria will need the support of the Security Council to be successful in his mission, he noted at the meeting.

The civil war has long since reached the Syrian capital, Damascus

No pressure on Syria

Members of the Security Council steered clear of pointing fingers at China and Russia, though French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius was critical of the Security Council’s ambivalent position

“None of us believe in the future of Assad’s regime when the cameras are off,” he said before adding that exactly how Assad would leave power without claiming further victims remained an open question.

Despite statements from all 15 Council members on the civil war in Syria, there were no new proposals. US Secretary of State called for the Security Council to deal with Syria once again, while China and Russia maintained their positions not to interfere with the internal affairs of a country. Both countries have close ties with the Assad regime.

The conflict is affecting neighboring countries as thousands flee to Turkey and Jordan

A lack of follow through

For the Arab League, the Palestinian question remains a key issue on which the Security Council has shown no credibility.

The Security Council has had more than 200 resolutions on this issue, but none was implemented, Elaraby said, noting that a good example is the continued construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

“We want the Security Council to think about how it deals with [some issues]. Double standards are not acceptable,” he added.

He said he believes it would be a mistake to leave the negotiations to the Middle East Quartet, which is made up of the UN, the United States, the European Union and Russia. The Security Council needs to commit to the rights of the Palestinians and not only manage the conflict, he said. Most of the other members backed his stance.

The Middle East conflict shows that the structure of the UN Security Council needs to be reformed, said South African Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane. Permanent members Russia, China, France, the United States and Great Britain have too much power, while African and Arab countries are represented by non-permanent members with no veto rights. However, there is yet to be a majority in the UN that supports reforming the Security Council.

21/09/12

22 September 2012

DAMASCUS’ RESOLVE to fight back is unsurprising. But the statement that President Bashar Al Assad has made, in an interview with an Egyptian daily, has created a déjà vu impact.

His utterance that foreigners are behind the uprising and there is no dissent among the Syrians against his rule is quite perplexing. This is exactly what Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi had said even days before his exit from the scene. Gaddafi also believed that his fall was being engineered by the West, and that he would live to reign supreme. The Libyan autocrat had also challenged that his house would not collapse like that of Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. Perhaps Gaddafi and Assad are in the same league, and they just failed to realise the change in ground realities. It would have been prudent for Assad to have opened a new vista of opportunity by offering new solutions that would have paved the way for his honourable exit. His adamant attitude is likely to cost him dearly in times to come.

Assad’s invite for a grand dialogue, however, is worth considering. Talking to Al Ahram newspaper, he said that he is open for dialogue, and negotiations are apparently the only way out. He, however, missed a crucial point in categorically saying as to whom he saw as stakeholders, and what could be the format of talks. This is so because the ruling Baath Party considers the opposition as planted, and the rebels on the battleground as agents of neighbouring countries, who are allegedly busy in plotting his downfall. So in such a confused and polarised political spectrum, the offer of so-called talks is nothing less than a stunt. It is here that one has to revisit the plan of action forwarded by the United Nations and the Arab League under former envoy to Syria Kofi Annan. The peace plan had hinted at talks with the resolve and precondition to see Assad’s exit that could lead to an amicable solution. Assad, from his fortified comforts, is yet to see the light of reality.

21/09/12

Arab League chief Nabil al-Araby said Wednesday that the league, along with the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the European Union and the African Union are close to formulating an international agreement penalizing blasphemy and insults to religious figures.

States should not be blamed for insults to Islam made by some individuals, Araby told reporters at the league’s headquarters in Cairo. He renewed his criticism of the US-produced film that denigrates Islam’s Prophet Mohamed and has sparked protests around the world, describing it as “valueless and trivial.”

Araby also denied any disagreements between Arab states over efforts to solve the Syrian crisis. Saudi Arabia did not attend a meeting held earlier this week on the Syrian issue with the foreign ministers of Egypt, Turkey and Iran.

Egypt’s presidential spokesperson Yasser Ali and an official from the Arab League said the Saudi foreign minister did not attend the Monday meeting in Cairo due to health problems. But Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr said his counterpart’s absence was due to a busy agenda.

Araby recently attended a dinner at the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, along with UN special envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi, and the foreign ministers of Egypt, Turkey and Iran. He said he had also met with Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi at the Arab League over several issues, adding that Salehi expressed his willingness to assist Brahimi and would soon visit Ankara.

Asked about reports claiming that some Arab countries have been arming Syrian opposition rebels, Araby said the league had nothing to do with the arming issue and that any Arab nation doing so is acting outside the league’s framework.

20/09/12

By TOBY STERLING, Associated Press – 20 minutes ago 

SCHEVENINGEN, Netherlands (AP) — A coalition including the United States, the European Union and the Arab League met Thursday to plot new ways of isolating the regime of Syria’s President Bashar Assad, and a Syrian opposition leader warned that sanctions alone won’t bring the regime down.

The group called Friends of the Syrian People was set up in February after the U.N. Security Council was unable to reach agreement on a resolution condemning Syria’s government, due to opposition from Russia and China.

On Thursday, financial experts joined representatives of the group at their meeting in a coastal suburb of The Hague, Netherlands, to help member countries understand how Syria may be relying on dual-use technologies and front companies to get around the existing sanctions, which include an embargo on oil and arms. Twelve more countries have joined the 60-member coalition, committing also to block Syrian financial transactions and to enforce a travel ban on the country’s top leaders.

The uprising against the Syrian government began in March 2011 as part of Arab Spring protests and intensified after Assad’s government used the country’s military in an attempt to end the unrest. The United Nations estimates that at least 18,000 people have been killed as a result of the fighting, most of them civilians. More than 1.5 million people have been displaced, many fleeing as refugees to neighboring countries such as Turkey and Jordan.

Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal said the sanctions are having an effect, despite non-participation by Russia, China and Iran, citing a sharp fall in Syria’s oil exports. “The EU took 90 percent of Syria’s oil,” before the sanctions were applied, he said. “It turns out to be hard for the regime to sell oil elsewhere.”

Abrahim Miro — a member of the Syrian Governing Council, an umbrella organization of Syrian opposition groups cooperating to overthrow the government — said the sanctions alone will not bring Assad’s regime down. He said he hopes increased sanctions and the armed resistance by the Syrian Free Army “will actually cause the economic heart attack and also the military heart attack of the regime.”

Miro said Syria’s continued trade with Iraq and Iran — which were not represented at Thursday’s meeting — is a major source of concern for the opposition.

Abdo Hussameldin — a former official in Syria’s oil ministry, who in March became the highest-ranking member of the government to defect — said the economic sanctions are demoralizing and delegitimizing the regime in the eyes of the country’s people. But he agreed with Miro that the sanctions alone won’t force Assad from office as long as his regime continues to get financial support from countries such as Russia, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela and Lebanon.

In a closing statement, the Friends of Syria coalition called on banks and companies to adhere to the sanctions, even if their government is not a member, or risk damage to their reputation and jeopardize their relations with the rest of the business world.

The Friends of Syria group agreed to meet again in Japan before the end of 2012, though no date was set.

16/09/12

On August 26, after hundreds of Syrians were found dead in Daraya, a town outside Damascus, Alia Mansour, a member of the Syrian National Council’s General Secretariat, announced that she was going on a hunger strike to protest the world’s silence over the massacres in her home country. Only a few days later, other activists from around the world joined Mansour. Today, as she ends her hunger strike, 53 other activists continue the protest. NOW Lebanon speaks to Mansour about her initiative and to fellow hunger striker Lina Tibi about their mission.    

“It was dawn and everyone was asleep,” said Mansour. “I was receiving the news, and the number of those found dead in Daraya was increasing dramatically; it was first 250, then it increased to 300, then later 44o… Now it is somewhere over 1,200, 700 of which are documented by name.  The fact that we Syrians have become just numbers was ripping me apart. I then announced that I was going on a hunger strike,” she told NOW.

When Mansour first decided to strike, she contacted other members of the SNC to propose they join her as opposed to only writing a statement of condemnation over the Daraya massacre. “I wanted it to be an outcry,” she said. “An outcry from the council to the Syrian people to say ‘We’re with you,’ and to the international community to say, ‘Enough with the silence.’”

Although there was no official position from the SNC in support of Mansour’s move, four other SNC members joined her hours later and issued their own statement calling upon activists from all around the world to join them.

“Our colleague Firas Kassas in Germany announced he was on hunger strike and was able to demonstrate for 10 days in front of the German Foreign Affairs Ministry. We wanted to organize something of the sort here in Lebanon, but we were not able to due to the security situation,” said Mansour.

The next day activists from nearby countries joined the strike. Today over 53 people from Lebanon, France, Jordan and Egypt—both Syrians and not—have joined the campaign. Although they differ on the specifics of their demands, all agree on denouncing the massacres in Syria and the paralysis of the international community. The SNC members and some other activists went further and stressed the need for direct intervention and for imposing a no-fly zone and humanitarian corridors.

A group of six women in Egypt organized a sit-in in Cairo in front of the Arab League headquarters near Tahrir Square. Syrian writer and poet Lina Tibi took up the hunger strike on September 4 and has been demonstrating in front of the league for nine days now. In a letter submitted to the new UN peace envoy for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, Tibi stressed on the situation of women and children in Syria and called for direct intervention for their protection.

“We also stressed in our letter the need for Egyptian authorities to stop ships from passing through the Suez to Syria, because we believe that these ships are coming from Iran and China and contain weapons that are used against our own people.”

The women’s group in Egypt received a large amount of attention from the Egyptian media, MPs, intellectuals and activists.

But the wider hunger striking campaign received little media attention overall because the increasing number of massacres and war crimes has left little space for any news of activism, Mansour said. “We in the council hope that the hunger strike campaign will have an impact. However, we are giving the internal situation more priority to support the people inside,” she said.

“We are receiving letters from people inside Syria in appreciation of our support. We are also receiving letters from abroad stating that although not much can be done in terms of influencing the international community’s decisions, much is being done to influence civil society organizations abroad to spread the word of the massacres taking place so that NGOs will support us.”

Soon after the strike began, the coordination committee within the SNC issued a statement requesting the SNC members to end their strike. According to Mansour, the committee was afraid that members would retreat from their daily duties on the council.

“I received calls from other members asking that I end my strike… but I decided to continue working as I was fasting.  I have been carrying out my relief work and flying in out of the country as my strike continues. But it was a colleague comment that urged the need to end my strike. He told me I was no longer efficient.”

While Mansour ended her strike after almost three weeks of only subsisting on yogurt and water and occasionally a glass of juice, the women in Egypt stressed that they will not break their fast until they achieve their demands.

“It’s suicidal, I know, but we believe that our people inside Syria are on hunger strike by force, and so we will only end our strike when the Syrian people end theirs.”

“We will persist with our strike and we have called upon the world to support the women and children of Syria on September 22 with us for a day of hunger striking.”

14/09/12

Former peace envoy Kofi Annan has warned that the violent struggle between the Syrian government and opposition forces risks tearing the country apart.

Kofi Annan said the international community needs to ‘get its act together’

He said it could spill over Syria’s borders to spread sectarian war across the region.

Mr Annan called on the international community to “get its act together”.

He said his successor Lakhdar Brahimi will need the support of all members of the UN Security Council - including Russia - to have a chance of a peaceful resolution to the Syrian crisis.

Mr Annan quit as the UN and Arab League’s envoy to Syria in August, complaining of a lack of support from the Security Council.

Russia and China have blocked resolutions designed to put pressure on President Bashar al-Assad.

The former UN secretary general told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “If the international community doesn’t get its act together and find a way of pressuring the parties to give up their ambitions on the battlefield, we are going to see a situation where sectarian war will spread in Syria and probably go beyond its borders.

“Syria is not Libya. Libya imploded, Syria will not implode but in all likelihood explode, and explode beyond its borders.

“That mosaic of Syria, if we tear it apart, is going to be very difficult to put together again.”

Mr Annan warned that “there can be no military solution” to the challenge presented to Mr Assad’s regime by the uprising which began in March 2011.

But he said: “Today it looks as if both sides have decided the way to resolve this is through the battlefield, which is in my judgement the wrong approach.

“It is going to lead to protracted war with the possibility of enflaming the region and killing thousands and thousands of Syrians.”

Mr Annan said that veteran Algerian diplomat Mr Brahimi, who took up his post as peace envoy at the start of this month, will be dependent on strong support from the Security Council to make an impact.

“Lakhdar Brahimi is experienced, he can make a contribution if he gets the support he needs - not passive support, but real support from the Security Council,” he said.

Asked if this must include Russia, Mr Annan replied: “Exactly. Alone, he cannot do it.”

13/09/12

By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY | Associated Press
Associated Press/Nasser Nasser - U.N.-Arab League envoy for Syria Lakhdar Brahimi attends a meeting with Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Althani, both unseen, at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser

12/09/12

#Syria, Brahimi to meet Assad during Damascus visit
New UN-Arab League envoy warns not to “expect miracles” this week as bombardment resumes in Aleppo rebel districts.

Just a few weeks after admitting his task was “nearly impossible”, special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is due to meet both Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and opposition members when he travels to the war-torn country this week.

Ahead of Brahimi’s visit, heavy fighting has continued across the country, including in Aleppo, where government forces targeted rebel positions on Tuesday, killing at least 12 people, activists said.

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, announced in Bern that Brahimi would meet Assad, without providing more details about the highly anticipated visit.

Ahmad Fawzi, Brahimi’s spokesman, said the envoy, selected by the UN and Arab League to replace Kofi Annan, would also meet representatives of the Syrian opposition.

“Brahimi will go to Damascus in the next few days. He will meet with President Assad and other officials, officials from the opposition, as well as representatives of civil society,” Fawzi said.

According to several UN diplomats, Brahimi was expected to arrive in Damascus by Thursday.

Annan quit in August over divisions within the UN Security Council that have prevented much action to halt the deadly violence that has gripped Syria for nearly 18 months.

The head of the UN’s refugee programme has told Al Jazeera that he plans to launch a new appeal for aid, estimating that another 650,000 Syrians might flee their country, in addition to the 250,000 who have already left.

Both sides accused

Syrian guns pounded rebel positions in Aleppo, the country’s largest city, after a comparatively quiet morning on Tuesday.

Drinking water supplies - cut off in many areas of the city after a main pipe was blown open during fighting and air raids on Saturday - were restored after repairs, a resident told the AFP news agency.

The city is Syria’s commercial hub, and its middle and upper classes were bastions of support for Assad. If the rebels took such a key city, it would give them a quasi-capital to complement the large swaths of territory they control in the north, up to the Turkish border.

In Damascus, an explosion rocked the upscale western district of Mezzeh overnight, and pro-regime fighters fought rebels in Barzeh, another wealthy neighbourhood, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based activist organisation.

In Deir Az Zor province in the east, warplanes bombarded the town of Abu Kamal on the Iraqi border, killing four people, including three women.

They also hit several districts of Deir Az Zor city, where clashes broke out and rebels deployed anti-aircraft guns. Rebels recently seized an air base outside of Abu Kamal.

More than 27,000 people have been killed since the conflict erupted in March last year, according to the Observatory.

The UN puts the death toll at 20,000.

Some doctors at makeshift clinics in Aleppo have told reporters they believe as many as 80 per cent of their patients are civilians wounded by indirect shelling and unpredictable gunfire.

The European Union’s top humanitarian chief, Kristalina Georgieva, said on Tuesday that both sides in the war are increasingly violating human rights law.

The Syrian government and allied militias have been accused by the UN and Western governments of numerous large-scale massacres, though the rebels are also facing fresh allegations of mass killings. 

Amateur YouTube video posted on Monday showed images of 20 dead Syrian soldiers, blindfolded and handcuffed, after they were apparently executed in the northern city of Aleppo.

The UN’s refugee agency has said that more than 1.2 million Syrians, over half of them children, have become internally displaced.

Brahimi pessimistic

Brahimi, who is in Cairo, said he would travel to Damascus in a few days to meet Syrian officials, but he has been unclear on whether he would be able to meet Assad himself.

Expectations that Brahimi will have any more success than Annan are low, however, and he himself warned Monday: “We cannot expect miracles.”

His pessimism appears warranted, since his mission begins with the US and Russia split on how to tackle the conflict and as fighting only escalates.

Yet Ban insisted that these “intolerable circumstances” must come to an end and that “the violence must stop by both sides.”

He said he understood the frustration felt by many in the face of the Security Council’s apparent paralysis in dealing with the worsening crisis.

He called on “all member states [to show] a common sense of common responsibility where human rights, human dignity are abused”.

“Those countries who might have influence over two parties should exercise” that influence and should work towards “a political resolution reflecting the genuine aspirations of the Syrian people”.

Laurent Fabius, France’s foreign minister, said his country - which has taken a lead role opposing Assad - had been assisting officials in defecting from the regime. “It’s our role,” he said. “Our agencies are active.”

General Manaf Tlass, one of the most senior members of Assad’s rule to flee Syria, said on Monday he had defected in July with the help of French special forces.