International peace envoy Kofi Annan intends to convene a high-level meeting on Syria in Geneva this Saturday as the conflict there intensifies, his deputy said today.
In related news, gunmen stormed a pro-government Syrian TV channel headquarters today, bombing buildings and shooting dead three employees, state media said, in one of the boldest attacks yet on a symbol of the authoritarian state.
The White House condemned all acts of violence in Syria this evening, including attacks by insurgents on supporters of the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
"We condemn all acts of violence, including those targeting pro-regime elements," White House spokesman Jay Carney told a regular daily news briefing. He called on all parties to end hostilities in Syria.
Speaking today, Mr Annan's spokesman Jean-Marie Guehenno, said the United Nations-Arab League envoy was working with foreign governments and all sides in the war to bring about a peaceful and comprehensive settlement.
Mr Annan's efforts in recent weeks have focused on setting up an action group on Syria which he now wants to convene on Saturday to find a common position on a resolution to the crisis, Mr Guehenno said.
At the moment, "all sides appear to not believe in the possibility of a political solution," he said.
"The opposition remains divided between those who favour a peaceful political solution, those who reject any understanding with the government, and those who support continued armed resistance," he added.
Western diplomats said they had not received any firm word of the Geneva meeting.
It was not clear how the question of Iran's participation - which the United States, Britian and France have objected to due to stalled talks on Tehran's nuclear programme - has been resolved.
Tehran is a neighbour of Syria and close Assad ally. France said Mr Annan's action group must find a common position on a credible political solution to the crisis.
"The action group should agree on the principles of a democratic transition in Syria as well as the priority which is to stop the repression and allow the free access of humanitarian aid to the civilian population," French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said in Paris.
"If this meeting in Geneva on Saturday is confirmed, this is the message that France will bring," he said.
Chinese diplomat Xia Jingge, speaking to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, said that Mr Annan's mediation and plan were an important and realistic channel to ease the violence and pave the way for a political solution.
In Syria itself, at least three people died in today's dawn attack on Ikhbariya television's offices, located 20 km south of the capital.
Overnight fighting on the outskirts of Damascus showed 16 months of violence now rapidly encroaching on the capital.
Ikhbariya resumed broadcasting shortly after the attack, displaying bullet holes in its two-storey concrete building and pools of blood on the floor. One building had been almost completely destroyed.
"I heard a small explosion then a huge explosion and gunmen ran in. They ransacked the offices and entirely destroyed the newsroom," an employee who works at the offices in the town of Drousha told state media at the scene.
The Syrian media are tightly regulated by the Ministry of Information. Although Ikhbariya is privately owned, opponents of Mr Assad say it is a government mouthpiece.
After yesterday's fighting unprecedented in its intensity around Damascus, violence appeared to ease off around the capital following the attack on the television complex. But rebel forces were clearly becoming stronger and more ambitious.
During the pro-democracy revolt against the Assad family's four-decade rule, Ikhbariya has been pushing to counter what it says is a campaign of misinformation by Western and Arab satellite channels on the uprising that began in March 2011.
"We live in a real state of war from all angles," Mr Assad told a cabinet he appointed on yesterday, in a speech broadcast on state television.
"When we are in a war, all policies and all sides and all sectors need to be directed at winning this war."
The declaration marks a change of rhetoric from Mr Assad, who had long dismissed the uprising against him as the work of scattered militants in "terrorist gangs" funded from abroad.
Reuters