Prospects of ending Syria deadlock poor

AS FIGHTING erupted yesterday between troops and rebels around Damascus, largely free of violence over the past 16 months, diplomats made desperate attempts to break the Security Council deadlock over the Syrian crisis.

Mortar shells were fired by the army into several quarters of the capital, including Kafr Souseh, where key ministries are located, and armoured personnel carriers rolled into the Midan district, for the first time.

UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan flew to Moscow and UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon headed to Beijing, hoping to persuade Russia and China to support tough sanctions as a means to force the Syrian government to halt violence and agree to negotiate a political transition.

Prospects are poor. Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov pre-empted Mr Annan’s arrival by stating that western powers were trying to use renewal of the UN monitoring mission in Syria, backed by Russia and China, as a means to “blackmail” them into accepting sanctions under chapter 7 of the UN charter, which authorises military action in cases of threats to world peace.

Mr Lavrov said it was “unrealistic” for the west to expect Russia to ask Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to resign. “He will not leave power . . . not because we are protecting him, but because there is a very significant part of the Syrian population behind him.” He repeated: “We are supporting . . . the peace plan of Kofi Annan.”

Jordanian prime minister Fayez Tarawheh said dialogue could not resolve the situation in Syria but insisted on a “political solution” involving an end to the bloodshed and a “compromise between the opposition and the Syrian regime”.

Meanwhile, former chief of Syria’s chemical weapons programme Maj Gen Adnan Silu has apparently defected to the rebel Free Syrian Army and has joined its command. He said the rebels controlled 60 per cent of the country and that “one or two air attacks [by Nato] on the presidential palace [would] topple the regime.”

At a venue near Istanbul, Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood is set to conclude its first meeting in more than 30 years focused on generating support for the revolt and recruiting young men and women.

The Brotherhood, banned in 1963, attempted to mount a popular rebellion in the late 1970s and early 1980s but it was crushed and its members killed, captured or forced to flee the country.

Following the expulsion of the Syrian ambassador in Morocco, Syria has declared the Moroccan ambassador persona non grata.

In Geneva, a senior UN aid official John Ging, an Irish national, said Syria had refused to grant visas to UN staff holding passports of western countries supporting the rebels. He warned that there could be a shortfall in Syria’s wheat harvest of 700,000 tonnes, forcing it to import wheat to make up the four to five million tonnes consumed. Mr Ging said the UN had to provide enough wheat to sustain the population.