Syria’s main opposition group met for key talks in Istanbul on Thursday to debate whether to join a new US-Russian peace initiative to end the two-year civil war, while the regime vowed to crush the insurgency.

Holding its seventh general assembly meeting since its creation last November, the National Coalition is expected to choose a new president, discuss incorporating new members and decide the fate of an interim rebel government, opponents said.

The three-day meeting comes as rebels face a massive onslaught by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces and the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah in the insurgent bastion of Al-Qusayr, central Syria.

Since the Syrian conflict erupted in March 2011, more than 90,000 people have been killed.

The opponents’ meeting begins a day after backers of the anti-Assad uprising during a meeting in Amman pledged more assistance to the opposition should the regime fail to commit to a peaceful political transition.

During Wednesday’s meeting in Amman, the Friends of Syria group also tried to agree the contours of a peace conference to end the war.

The opposition has long held that it can only enter into talks with members of the regime if negotiations are guaranteed to lead to the fall of Assad’s regime.

While Assad has repeatedly said the Syrian war can only end with a political solution, state news agency SANA hinted Thursday the regime may defy the US-Russian push for peace.

“Having proclaimed themselves spokesmen for the Syrian people, participants [in the Amman meeting] have blocked the road towards the holding of an international conference” for peace, said SANA, in reference to the meeting dubbed Geneva 2 proposed by the United States and Russia.

“The enemies of Syria have clearly announced they will confiscate the Syrians’ right to carve out their country’s political future and to end the crisis through a political solution”, SANA added.

Also on Thursday, Assad reportedly told a Tunisian delegation he was determined to crush the rebellion “and those who support it regionally and globally”, SANA said.

The opposition’s ambassador in France Monzer Makhous said SANA’s dismissal of the Friends of Syria meet was “a sign” that the regime may reject the Geneva 2 proposal.

“It is not an official refusal, but it is a sign. SANA would never provide any information that does not reflect the government’s position,” Makhous told AFP.

“I feel it is unlikely that this conference [Geneva 2] would be able to reach a real solution to the Syrian crisis — not because the opposition would not want that, but because the regime does not want that,” he added.

Makhous said the Geneva 2 proposal would see the entry of a transitional government bringing together regime and opposition representatives, and that it would take over full powers in Syria for a time.

“Bashar (al-Assad) would be out of the equation, and the transitional government would be in charge of the security and military files.

“Anyone capable of analysis can see that the Syrian regime would not accept this equation, though it is the least the opposition is willing to accept,” Makhous said.

Meanwhile other Coalition members expressed reservations over Geneva 2.

“We don’t have a list of attendees, we don’t know what countries are going to attend, what’s the agenda, what’s being proposed, what are the final goals,” Coalition spokesman Khaled al-Saleh told reporters.

Another Coalition member told AFP on condition of anonymity the Geneva 2 proposal “is the same piece of hashish the international community gives us every time. They lure us into thinking the end is nigh, and then it just continues”.

With a vast onslaught on Al-Qusayr leaving scores dead in the past week, Assad appears as far as ever from giving up.

In an interview with an Argentinian newspaper this month, Assad implied he would stay until the next scheduled election in 2014.

“The regime and its backers are trying to change the situation on the ground militarily, in order to gain the upper hand in negotiations… This is costing the Syrians blood,” Coalition member Samir Nashar told AFP.

In Istanbul, dissidents are also seeking to name a new Coalition president to replace Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib, who resigned in March, as well as three new vice presidents and a new secretary general.

The opposition is seeking to establish a rebel government under interim prime minister Ghassan Hitto, while discussing the group’s expansion to include 31 new members, Saleh said.

Should Hitto’s proposal fail to win the Coalition’s confidence, “he may be given a second or a third chance”, the spokesman added.

AFP - 05/23/2013

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

Foreign ministry says deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov did not say rebels were on course to oust Assad regime.

Russia has denied that its deputy foreign minister said that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad was losing control of his country. 

The Russian foreign ministry said in a statement on Friday Mikhail Bogdanov did not say that ”an opposition victory can’t be excluded”.

The statement said Bogdanov was simply citing the stance of the Syrian opposition while giving a speech on Thursday.

“We would like to remark that he [Bogdanov] has made no statements or special interviews with journalists in the last days,” Alexander Lukashevich, the ministry spokesman said in a statement on Friday.

Lukashevich confirmed that the hearing with the Social Chamber, where Bogdanov’s comments were recorded, had taken place but said Bogdanov’s remarks focused on Moscow’s stance on the crisis. 

“Bogdanov reiterated Russia’s position there is no alternative to a political solution in Syria, based on the final 
communique of the Action Group which was approved by consensus at a ministerial meeting in Geneva,” the statement said. 

In what analysts said were the clearest sign that Moscow was preparing for possible defeat of its ally, Bogdanov said: “One must look the facts in the face. The regime and government in Syria is losing control … Unfortunately, a victory of the Syrian opposition cannot be ruled out.”

The comments came on the same day that NATO chief also said that he believed Assad’s regime was nearing “collapse”.The US seized on Bogdanov’s comments, saying Russia is “waking up to the reality” and analysts viewed the diplomat’s statement as Russia’s attempt to begin positioning itself for Assad’s eventual defeat.

‘Weapons of terror’

Anders Fogh Rasmussen also condemned the alleged use by Assad’s forces of Scud missiles to attack rebels.

“I think the regime in Damascus is approaching collapse,” he told reporters after a meeting with the prime minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, at the military alliance’s headquarters in Brussels.

“I think now it is only a question of time.”

Rasmussen said the reported use of Scud missiles by the Syrian government showed “utter disregard” for the lives of Syrian people. 

Scud missiles “are weapons of terror,” said Riad Kahwaji, founder of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis (INEGMA).

Aaraba Idriss, former first lieutenant who defected 10 months ago, said members of his former battalion told him they fired five Scud missiles for the first time on Monday from their location in Nasiriyeh on the highway between Damascus and the central Syrian city of Homs, according to the AFP news agency. 

Idriss said the “Golan-1 missiles were either Russian-made or Russian modified” and had a range of up to 300km.

Syria’s foreign ministry has denied using Scud missiles against rebels and called the statements ”biased and conspiratorial rumours”.

“It is known that Scuds are strategic, long-range missiles and are not suited for use against armed terrorist gangs,” the ministry said

Syrian rebels are gaining ground and might win, Russia’s Middle East envoy said on Thursday, in the starkest such admission from a major ally of President Bashar al-Assad in 20 months of conflict.

“One must look the facts in the face,” Russia’s state-run RIA quoted Mikhail Bogdanov as saying. “Unfortunately, the victory of the Syrian opposition cannot be ruled out.”

Bogdanov, a deputy foreign minister and the Kremlin’s special envoy for Middle East affairs, said the Syrian government was “losing control of more and more territory” and Moscow was preparing to evacuate Russian citizens if necessary.

Advancing rebels now hold an almost continuous arc of territory from the east to the southeast of Damascus, despite fierce army bombardments designed to drive them back.

The head of NATO said he thought Assad’s government was nearing collapse and the new leader of Syria’s opposition told Reuters the people of Syria no longer needed international forces to protect them.

“The horrific conditions which the Syrian people endured prompted them to call on the international community for military intervention at various times,” said Mouaz al-Khatib, a preacher who heads Syria’s National Coalition.

“Now the Syrian people have nothing to lose. They handled their problems by themselves. They no longer need international forces to protect them. The international community has been in a slumber, silent and late (to react) as it saw the Syrian people bleeding and their children killed for the past 20 months,” he added in the interview on Wednesday night.

He did not specify whether by intervention he meant a no-fly zone that rebels have been demanding for month, a ground invasion - which the opposition has warned against - or arms shipments.

He said the opposition would consider any proposal from Assad to surrender power and leave the country, but would not give any assurances until it saw a firm proposal.

In the latest blow to the government, a car bomb killed at least 16 men, women and children in Qatana, a town about 25 km (15 miles) southwest of Damascus where many soldiers live, activists and state media said.

The explosion occurred in a residential area for soldiers in Qatana, which is near several army bases, said Rami Abdelrahman, head of the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

He put the death toll as 17, including seven children and two women. State news agency SANA said 16 people had died.

State television blamed the blast on “terrorists” - its term for rebels - and showed footage of soldiers walking by a partly collapsed building, with rubble and twisted metal on the road.

The attack follows three bombs at the Interior Ministry on Wednesday evening, in which state news agency SANA said five people were killed, including Abdullah Kayrouz, a member of parliament from the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.

Apart from gaining territory in the outskirts of Damascus in recent weeks, rebels have also made hit-and-run attacks or set off bombs within the capital, often targeting state security buildings or areas seen as loyal to Assad, such as Jaramana, where twin bombs killed 34 people in November.

The Pakistani Foreign Office said on Thursday security concerns had prompted it to withdraw the ambassador and all Pakistani staff from the embassy in the central suburb of East Mezzeh, a couple miles from the Interior Ministry.

BACK TO THE WALL

Insurgents launched an offensive on Damascus after a July 18 bombing that killed four of Assad’s closest aides, including his feared brother-in-law Assef Shawkat, but were later pushed back.

With his back to the wall, Assad is reported to be turning ever deadlier weapons on his adversaries.

“I think the regime in Damascus is approaching collapse,” NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Thursday.

U.S. NATO officials said on Wednesday the Syrian military had fired Scud-style ballistic missiles, which are powerful but not very accurate, against rebels in recent days.

Human Rights Watch said some populated areas had been hit by incendiary bombs, containing flammable materials such as napalm, thermite or white phosphorous, which can set fire to buildings or cause severe burns and respiratory damage.

The British-based Syrian Observatory said war planes were bombing rebel-held eastern suburbs of Damascus on Thursday and artillery was hitting Daraya and Moadamiyeh, southwestern areas near the centre where rebels have been fighting for a foothold.

At least 40,000 people have been killed in Syria’s uprising, which started in March 2011 with street protests which were met with gunfire by Assad’s security forces, and which spiraled into the most enduring and destructive of the Arab revolts.

The United States, European powers and Arab states bestowed their official blessing on Syria’s newly-formed opposition coalition on Wednesday, despite increasing signs of Western unease at the rise of militant Islamists in the rebel ranks.

Western nations at “Friends of Syria” talks in Marrakech, Morocco rallied around a new opposition National Coalition formed last month under moderate Islamist cleric Mouaz Alkhatib.

Russia, which along with China has blocked any U.N. Security Council measures against Assad, criticized Washington’s decision to grant the coalition formal recognition, saying it appeared to have abandoned any effort to reach a political solution.

Bogdanov’s remarks were the clearest sign yet that Russia is preparing for the possible defeat of Assad’s government.

“We are dealing with issues of preparations for an evacuation. We have mobilization plans and are clarifying where our citizens are located,” Bogdanov said.

Thu Dec 13, 2012 9:32am EST

09/12/12

By Erika Solomon

BEIRUT |

(Reuters) - Syrian rebels backed by radical Islamists captured a northern regimental command center of President Bashar al-Assad’s army, activists said on Sunday, as Russia dismissed speculation that it is preparing for its ally’s possible exit from power.

Assad’s forces hammered rebel units on the outskirts of Damascus as they tried to drive back opposition fighters rebels seeking to advance toward the embattled leader’s seat of power.

Rebels have made a series of advances in recent weeks, partly due to help from radicals such as Jabhat al-Nusra, a group linked to Al Qaeda in Iraq which has been excluded from a newly-formed rebel military command.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Jabhat al-Nusra, which has called for the creation of an Islamic state in Syria, had participated in capturing the command center of the army’s 111th regiment in the north of the country. It said around five soldiers were captured, while the commanding officer and some 140 of his men fled to another army site nearby.

Russia, Syria’s main arms supplier, dismissed suggestions from observers that its support for Assad might be softening.

“We are not holding any talks on the fate of Assad,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after meeting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and special U.N. envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi. “All attempts to present the situation differently are rather shady,” Itar-Tass news agency quoted him as saying.

Washington and its NATO allies, who have thrown their weight behind the opposition, are pressing for Assad’s departure to end the conflict in Syria, which has taken more than 40,000 lives.

Russia and China have blocked U.N. resolutions against Assad, saying they oppose foreign intervention in the conflict.

However, Western officials have recently cited intelligence reports that Assad may turn to chemical weapons. “We have seen enough evidence to know that they need a warning and they have received a warning and I hope they heed that,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Saturday.

Syria has repeatedly denied the charges and accused the West of creating pretexts for foreign intervention.

RADICALS ON THE RISE

Rebels have seized several military bases in recent weeks, although some activists on the ground say there is no sign they are on the verge of toppling Assad.

The rebels’ capture of the regimental command center in the Sheikh Suleiman region of Aleppo province, however, shows growing cooperation and even allegiance to radical Islamists who have proven to be some of the most effective fighters.

It is unclear how much Jabhat al-Nusra’s exclusion from the newly-formed rebel military command in Syria, an effort backed by Western, Turkish and Arab security officials, will affect efforts to unify rebel ranks and increase financial support.

Led by Brigadier Selim Idris, the new command structure itself is also Islamist-dominated, though it has the backing of many Western states which have expressed reluctance to support the rebels due to the presence of radicals.

Radical groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra are small compared with other factions but their influence has grown in recent months, partly due to their successful operations. Some residents and rebels also believe the hardliners are more disciplined than some rebels who have been accused of looting and kidnapping.

ROAD TO DAMASCUS?

Damascus has become a focal point of battles over the past week, as rebels effectively shut the international airport by clashing with Assad’s forces there. Foreign flights have been suspended and residents say the airport road is closed.

Rebels who have dubbed their campaign “Operation Opening the Road to Damascus”, uploaded video on Sunday that showed heavy gunbattles and explosions rocking several rural towns around the capital. The video also showed rebels firing a fully functioning tank which they had captured from the army.

But there is no clear winner yet in a battle where neither side seems to have advanced. The Syrian army has claimed many successes around the capital, airing footage on state television of soldiers raiding parts of the rebel stronghold of Deraya.

“Our noble forces in Deraya have destroyed some of the terrorist dens used by al Qaeda terrorists to store weapons and other criminal tools,” said a report on Syria TV, which usually refers to rebels as terrorists. “Many terrorists were killed.”

Syrian soldiers also freed an Iranian diplomat captured on the outskirts of Damascus on Saturday, according to Iran’s state-run Arabic news channel Al-Alam. Majeed Adeli, the cultural attaché at the Iranian embassy in Damascus, had been kidnapped by rebels in the Sayyida Zeinab suburb.

Rebels have been targeting Iranians in Syria, many of whom it accuses of belonging to Iranian security forces. Iran has been Assad’s main bankroller and backer in the region. Rebels are also holding 48 Iranians which Tehran says were pilgrims.

09/12/12

Group linked to Al Qaeda in Iraq, Syrian rebels

capture northern outpost, capture 5 soldiers.

David Trifunov

A Syrian opposition fighter keeps the queue in order as people line up to buy bread outside a bakery in the al-Fardos neighbourhood of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on December 9, 2012. (ODD ANDERSEN/AFP/Getty Images)

Radical Islamists linked to Al Qaeda in Iraq have helped rebels capture a Syrian army outpost, Reuters reported today.

One of the more prominent groups, Jabhat al-Nusra, bolstered Syrians fighting against President Bashar al-Assad’s troops in the north.

Together, they captured five soldiers from the 111th regiment, according to Reuters.

Jabhat al-Nusra wants an Islamic state inside Syria, the newswire said, and is operating inside Syria despite its exclusion from a rebel leadership group.

While rebels claim to be closing in on the capital Damascus, US and Russian politicians are meeting with UN peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to discuss the 20-month Syrian civil war.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said reports that his country is ready to soften its stance on Assad are wrong.

More from GlobalPost: Syrian rebels elect new command, target airport

After US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Lavrov and Brahimi late last week in Ireland, reports were that Russia has started to lose its patience with Assad.

That’s not true, Lavrov said, and Russia is only discussing Syria on the assurance a peace deal wouldn’t force him from power.

“We are not conducting any negotiations on the fate of Assad,” Lavrov said Sunday, according to The Associated Press.

“All attempts to portray things differently are unscrupulous, even for diplomats of those countries which are known to try to distort the facts in their favor.”

Also today, activists said nine Syrian judges and prosecutors from the city of Adlib defected.

They posted a video online and urged others to follow their lead, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told the AP.

09/12/12

08/12/12

A Syrian army helicopter flies over the northern city of Aleppo in October. Iraq has shut its airspace to four Syrian flights scheduled to pick up attack helicopters that had been repaired in Russia, the Iraqi Prime Minister’s spokesman said Tuesday. (Tauseef Mustafa/AFP/GettyImages)

by Michael Grabell, Dafna Linzer and Jeff Larson
ProPublica

Iraq has shut its airspace to four Syrian flights scheduled to pick up attack helicopters that had been repaired in Russia, the spokesman to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki said Tuesday. Syria hasfailed several times since June to retrieve the refurbished helicopters from Russia, and the regime of Bashar al-Assad appears to be growing more desperate as fighting intensifies.

08/12/12

by Reza Kahlili Email |

Hours after NATO agreed on Tuesday to send Patriot missiles to Turkey because of the crisis in Syria, Russia delivered its first shipment of Iskander missiles to Syria.

The superior Iskander can travel at hypersonic speed of over 1.3 miles per second (Mach 6-7) and has a range of over 280 miles with pinpoint accuracy of destroying targets with its 1,500-pound warhead, a nightmare for any missile defense system.

According to Mashregh, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard media outlet, Russia had warned Turkey not to escalate the situation, but with Turkey’s request for Patriot missiles, it delivered its first shipment of Iskanders to Syria.

Reporting today, Mashregh said the handover occurred when Russian naval logistic vessels docked at Tartus in Syria.

The Iskandar is a surface-to-surface missile that no missile defense system can trace or destroy, Mashregh said. Russia had earlier threatened that should America put its missile defense system in Poland, it would retaliate by placing its Iskander missiles at Kaliningrad, its Baltic Sea port.

Russia’s delivery of Iskanders to Bashar Assad’s embattled regime clearly shows that the security and stability of Syria remains Russia’s red line, Mashregh said. It is unknown how many of these missiles have been delivered but the numbers given are sufficient to destroy any Patriot missiles in Turkey, it said.

The delivery of the missile not only threatens the security of Turkey but also Israel, which would have to recalculate its strategy with its defensive and offensive capabilities.

As reported in a WND exclusive on Dec. 5, Iran’s Islamic regime also sees the toppling of the Assad regime as its red line and has 170 ballistic missiles targeting Tel Aviv in underground missile silos, some with biological warheads.

In August, a commentary in Mashregh, representing the regime’s views, warned America and Israel that further instability in Syria would spark a pre-emptive attack on Israel in which the use of weapons of mass destruction – biological, chemical and even nuclear bombs – won’t be off the table. It stated that certain groups (proxies, such as Hezbollah) have been armed with WMDs and that Israel will be their target.

The Mashregh commentary charged that Israel is one of the conspirators behind the Syrian crisis in order to strategically change the geopolitics of the region and defeat one of the main players in the Islamic world’s “resistance front” (Iran, Syria and Hezbollah). It warned Israel that with the direction it has chosen, “There is a dead end, and the threat of mass killing awaits.”

The Islamic regime in Iran for its part continues to ship arms to Syria via Iraq both by air and ground while its Quds Forces help the Assad regime in killing its own people. To date, over 40,000 people, including many women and children, have died since the Syrian uprising began in March of 2011.

Reports indicate that Assad has decided to use chemical weapons on his own people as a last attempt to save his rule. Speaking in Prague on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Syria that the use of chemical weapons would be a red line, indicating that America would retaliate.

Meanwhile, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has ordered the Guards and its Quds Forces to use all of their capabilities to protect Assad and has threatened war against those helping the rebels in Syria, primarily Saudi Arabia and Turkey, according to a source who had served in the Revolutionary Guards intelligence unit but who has since defected.

The source added that the recent Gaza conflict was a warning to America and Israel that the Islamic regime in Iran can destabilize the region further should the push in Syria continue to topple Assad. The region will witness terrorist attacks, assassinations and incitement for uprisings in countries allied with America as the situation in Syria further deteriorates, the regime has promised, according to the source.

07/12/12

From Adrian Croft, Reuters:  Russia accused NATO on Friday of moving towards involvement in the Syrian conflict, three days after the alliance decided to station Patriot missiles to protect Turkey from spillover from the violence.

The charge came from Russia’s new ambassador to NATO, and came in spite of NATO assurances that the Patriots, which will be placed near Turkey’s border with Syria, are intended purely for defensive purposes.

“This is not a threat to us, but this is an indication that NATO is moving towards engagement and that’s it,” Alexander Grushko told reporters.

“We see a threat of further involvement of NATO in the Syrian situation as a result of some provocation or some incidents on the border, if they take place,” he said.

Grushko appeared to take a tougher line than Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who said after talks with NATO foreign ministers in Brussels on Tuesday that Moscow would not protest against the deployment of the Patriot missiles.  (photo: Alexander Vilf/RIA Novosti)

06/12/12

Putin said new ideas emerged at talks in Turkey

* Spokesman says unclear whether ideas acceptable to Syrians

* Russia says it opposes forced removal of Assad

By Alexei Anishchuk

ASHGABAT, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Russian and Turkish diplomats will soon start working on new ideas for ending the conflict in Syria which emerged in talks between President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, the Kremlin said on Wednesday.

Putin and Erdogan agreed to differ on Syria at Monday’s talks in Istanbul but Russia has distanced itself from President Bashar al-Assad and tried to position itself for his potential exit from power.

Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, confirmed diplomats would discuss what Putin said were “some new, fresh ideas” but gave no details.

“It was agreed that these ideas will be discussed in more detail by our diplomats in the very near future, in order to understand how viable they are and how great their potential to resolve (the Syrian crisis),” Peskov said.

“It is still unclear to what degree they might be acceptable to the sides in Syria itself,” he told reporters on the sidelines of a summit of the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States in Turkmenistan’s capital, Ashgabat.

Russia has shielded Assad by blocking, along with China, three U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed at pushing him out or pressing him to end violence that has killed more than 40,000 people since a crackdown on protests began in March 2011.

Turkey - worried about Syria’s chemical weapons, a growing refugee crisis, and Syrian support for Kurdish militants - has backed the Syrian opposition and led calls for international action against Assad.

After talks with Erdogan, Putin said Russia and Turkey still disagreed about how to end the crisis in Syria.

Russian officials have repeatedly said Moscow is not insisting Assad remain in power, but that his fate must not be decided by foreign governments or other external forces, including the U.N. Security Council.

“The exit or the continuation of the Assad regime is absolutely not a must,” Peskov said.

“But we cannot say, sitting in Ankara or London or Qatar, that Assad must go. That cannot be, it is not viable - such decisions could potentially lead to a worsening of the situation,” he said.

Putin, who returned to the presidency in May, has made Syria a showcase of what he says is the determination to protect the principle of non-intervention in sovereign states.

Russia has warned the West it would not allow a repeat in Syria of last year’s events in Libya, where NATO military intervention helped rebels to topple dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

But the talk of considering fresh ideas suggested Russia is looking for ways to end the diplomatic deadlock or at least cast itself as part of a solution, and position itself for the possibility of Assad’s exit.

“Russians are now looking beyond Assad,” said Dmitry Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center think-tank.

“I don’t think they will change their position on the basic issues such as ‘regime change’ or outside intervention but I think they will be looking at the day after, what happens when the government falls,” he said.

Putin’s Middle East affairs envoy, Mikhail Bogdanov, met the U.S. ambassador to Moscow at the request of the United States on Tuesday and the British ambassador on Wednesday, Russian’s Foreign Ministry said. The focus was on Syria and the Israeli-Palestinian situation but details were not announced.

Russia has stepped up meetings with Syrian opposition groups, seemingly hedging its bets.

“I would not rule out that behind the scenes, (Russia) could be trying to find a way to solve ‘the Assad problem’,” a Western diplomat said.

That could be easier said than done.

“Russia’s influence over Assad has been widely exaggerated,” Trenin said. “The Russians have very unfortunately manoeuvred themselves into a situation in which they are considered to be responsible for Assad without any real influence over him.”

06/12/12

Michael Kelley

Unnamed U.S. officials told NBC News that the Syrian military has loaded the precursor chemicals for sarin nerve gas into aerial bombs to potentially use in the country’s civil war.

But Syria says the claims are a Western attempt to provide a pretext to send international forces into the country.

“We fear there is a conspiracy to provide a pretext for any subsequent interventions in Syria by these countries that are increasing pressure on Syria,” Assad’s deputy foreign minister Faisal Maqdad said Thursday. He also repeated the assertion that the regime would never use chemical weapons on the Syrian people.

Sarin gas, a colorless and odorless gas that can spread quickly through the air, is one of the most dangerous and toxic chemicals known to man. The Assad government has more than 500 metric tons of the precursors and usually stores them separately to prevent accidentally triggering a deadly reaction.

The U.S. claims came hours after French weekly magazine Le Point reported that NATO special forces are preparing to enter Syria to secure its chemical weapons stockpiles.

NATO has already approved Patriot missiles for Turkey’s border with Syria. And The Voice of Russia reported that there are now 17 warships off the Syrian coast following the arrival of the U.S.S. Dwight D Eisenhower — a multipurpose nuclear attack carrier that holds 70 fighter-bombers and 8,000 U.S. servicemembers — in the eastern Mediterranean.

On Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the U.S. is “certainly planning to take action” if new evidence showed that Assad’s regime intended to use its stash of chemical weapons internally or cross-border.

Also on Monday there were reports that the regime had reached the point “where they can load it up on a plane and drop it,” but on Tuesday the Pentagon told NBC that there was no clear evidence that preparations had begun.

Meanwhile Syrian rebels are closing in on Damascus and activists posted a video telling residents of Damascus how to prepare for the “Zero Hour” — a major offensive in the capital to topple the Assad regime.

Yesterday Haaretz reported that Syrian deputy foreign minister Faisal al-Miqdad recently traveled to Cuba, Venezuela, and Ecuador with personal letters from Assad, looking for the possibility of political asylum for him and his family.

No matter the veracity of the claim, all signs point to the end game of the 21-month conflict.

Western powers are whipping up fears of a fateful move to the use of chemical weapons in Syria’s civil war as a “pretext for intervention”, President Bashar al-Assad’s deputy foreign minister said on Thursday.

He spoke as Germany’s cabinet approved stationing Patriot anti-missile batteries on Turkey’s border with Syria, a step requiring deployment of NATO troops that Syria fears could permit imposition of a no-fly zone over its territory.

“Syria stresses again, for the tenth, the hundredth time, that if we had such weapons, they would not be used against its people. We would not commit suicide,” Faisal Maqdad said.

U.S. President Barack Obama and other NATO leaders have warned that using chemical weapons would cross a red line and have consequences, which they have not specified.

Assad would probably lose vital diplomatic support from Russia and Chinathat has blocked military intervention in the 20-month-old uprising that has claimed more than 40,000 lives.

A senior Russian lawmaker and ally of President Vladimir Putin said Syria’s government is incapable of doing its job properly, a sign that Moscow may already be trying to distance itself from Assad.

“We have shared and do share the opinion that the existing government in Syria should carry out its functions. But time has shown that this task is beyond its strength,” Vladimir Vasilyev, who heads President Putin’s party group in the State Duma lower house, was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.

Syria’s Maqdad said Western reports the Syrian military was preparing chemical weapons for use against rebel forces trying to close in on the capital Damascus were simply “theatre”.

“In fact, we fear a conspiracy … by the United States and some European states, which might have supplied such weapons to terrorist organizations in Syria, in order to claim later that Syria is the one that used these weapons,” he said on Lebanon’s Al Manar television, the voice of Hezbollah.

“We fear there is a conspiracy to provide a pretext for any subsequent interventions in Syria by these countries that are increasing pressure on Syria.”

UNCONTROLLABLE

Exactly what Syria’s army has done with suspected chemical weapons to prompt a surge of Western warnings is not clear. Reports citing Western intelligence and defense sources are vague and inconsistent.

The perceived threat may be discussed in Dublin on Thursday when Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meet international Syria mediator Lakhdar Brahimi to try to put a U.N. peace process for Syria back on track.

The talks come ahead of a meeting of the Western-backed “Friends of Syria” group in Marrakech next week which is expected to boost support for rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Brahimi wants world powers to issue a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a transitional administration.

In addition to the possible use of chemical bombs by “an increasingly desperate” Assad, Clinton said Washington was concerned about the government losing control of such weapons to extreme Islamist armed groups among the rebel forces.

U.S. officials said Washington was considering blacklisting Jabhat al-Nusra, an influential rebel group accused by other rebels of indiscriminate tactics that has advocated an Islamic state in Syria and is suspected of ties to al Qaeda.

An explosion in front of the Damascus headquarters of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent killed at least one person on Thursday, Syrian state television said.

It blamed “terrorists from al Qaeda” — a term often employed to refer to rebel forces.

Meanwhile, activists said the army pummeled several eastern suburbs of Damascus, where the rebels are dominant, with artillery and mortar fire. The suburbs have also been cut off from the city’s water and electricity for weeks, rebels say, accusing the government of collective punishment.

COLLAPSE

Rebels say they have surrounded an air base 4 km (2-1/2 mikes) from the center of Damascus, a fresh sign the battle is closing in on the Syrian capital.

They also said they were battling soldiers on the road to Damascus International Airport, 20 km (12 miles) out of the capital where several airlines have canceled flights due to security concerns.

Maqdad, in his interview on Thursday, argued that reports of such advances were untrue: “What is sad is that foreign countries believe these repeated rumors.”

But residents inside the capital say the sound of shelling on the outskirts has become a constant backdrop and many fear the fight will soon come to Damascus.

The Western military alliance’s decision to send U.S., German and Dutch Patriot missile batteries to help defend the Turkish border would bring European and U.S. troops to Syria’s frontier for the first time in the civil war.

The actual deployment could take several weeks.

“Some countries now are now supplying Turkey with missiles for which there is no excuse. Syria is not going to attack the Turkish people,” Maqdad said.

But a veteran Turkish commentator, Cengiz Candar of the Radikal newspaper, said Ankara fears Syria’s 500 short-range ballistic missiles could fall into the wrong hands.

The government is “of the view that Syria was not expected to use them against Turkey, but that there was a risk of these weapons falling into the hands of ‘uncontrolled forces’ when the regime collapses”, he wrote.

04/12/12

By Indo Asian News Service