"Bashar al Assad lost control of the country ... (he) is a threat to peace & security"
White House:
"...Syrian President Bashar al-Assad "has lost control of the country" and it is inevitable that his "brutal regime" will fall from power, according to a spokesman for the White House."..."
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| 'I can't hear you!' |
Clinton
"... The Security Council must act and make clear to the Syrian regime that the world community views its actions as a threat to peace and security. The violence must end, so that a new period of democratic transition can begin.
Tomorrow, I will attend a United Nations Security Council meeting on Syria where the international community should send a clear message of support to the Syrian people: we stand with you. The Arab League is backing a resolution that calls on the international community to support its ongoing efforts, because the status quo is unsustainable. The longer the Assad regime continues its attacks on the Syrian people and stands in the way of a peaceful transition, the greater the concern that instability will escalate and spill over throughout the region..."
"It seems that our arm-twisting with the Russians hasn't borne fruit!"
"... Syrian human rights activists said they are placing increasingly desperate hopes on the UN.
"It has become the last chance for the Security Council to Act," Syrian pro-democracy activist Radwan Ziadeh told Yahoo News in a telephone interview from New York Monday.
Ziadeh is one of a group of Syrian opposition activists who had just come from a meeting Monday with Russia's ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin. So far, Ziadeh said, the Russian envoy gave no sign Moscow would budge on its opposition to a resolution condemning Assad.
Syria is Russia's closest ally in the Middle East. "But we hope in last minute negotiations Russia agrees to not use its veto, to at least not block a resolution," Ziadeh said.
US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said Monday that the United States and allies would back a resolution drafted by Morocco on behalf of the Arab League. She said that since the draft does not call for Libya-style military intervention or even new sanctions, the resolution should not raise objections or require extended debate. Still, she did not rule out the idea that Russia would block the measure.
Russia's continued objection to Security Council condemnation of Assad has both political and economic components.
"Basically there are domestic constraints that [Russian Prime Minister Vladimir] Putin is under because has his own election process and … his giving in to pressure abroad and dumping Assad would not look good for him domestically given he has faced protests at home," Andrew Tabler, a Syria analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told Yahoo News Monday. "It seems that our arm-twisting with the Russians hasn't borne fruit yet."
UN Resolution Draft Urges Al-Assad to Step Down, Russia Opposes
Russia will not ask Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad to step down, not only because of the alliance between the two countries but also because this is not something up to other nations to interfere in, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday.
"I don't think the Russian policy is about asking people to step down. Regime change is not our profession," Lavrov told the national broadcaster ABC during his visit to Australia."It is up to the Syrians themselves to decide how to run the country, how to introduce the reforms, what kind of reforms, without any outside interference," he added.
This comes as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, head of the Arab League Nabil Al-Arabi, and the foreign ministers of Britain and France were gathering in New York Tuesday to push forward the UN resolution on Syria and persuade Russia to drop its opposition.
The United Nations called on Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad to hand over power to his deputy and to “stop the violence against protestors”.
The New UN resolution draft on Syria, which was seen by AFP Tuesday, claimed there will be no foreign military intervention in Syria. However, it demanded the Syrian president to “delegate his full authority to his deputy and then to form a national unity government leading to "transparent and free elections under Arab and international supervision".
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