Dubai France Thursday warned of civil war in Syria unless foreign monitors are given the means to oversee a ceasefire.
Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said that Bashar Al Assad's regime had failed to comply with a UN peace plan. He was speaking at a conference of more than a dozen senior officials from states that support sanctions against Syria to force Al Assad to comply with United Nations envoy Kofi Annan's plan.
UN observers must be deployed quickly to Syria, otherwise the UN Security Council will examine other options to end the crisis there, Juppe said.
"We cannot wait, time is short… The observers must be deployed fast and must be able to act without obstacles."
The Pentagon, meanwhile, is "reviewing and planning for a range of additional measures that may be necessary to protect the Syrian people," US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said, with top US military planners using the US intervention in Libya as a potential template for action.
Humanitarian corridor
Speaking at a House Armed Services Committee hearing in Washington, he said: "Make no mistake: one way or another, this regime ultimately will meet its end."
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the solution to the crisis in Syria was the establishment of a humanitarian corridor that would allow the opposition to Al Assad to survive. Al Assad "wants to wipe Homs off the map just like [former Libyan leader Muammar] Gaddafi wanted to destroy Benghazi," Sarkozy said.
Meanwhile, UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's deputy told the Security Council yesterday that the swift deployment of more observers to Syria was needed despite continued risks and persistent violence, council diplomats told Reuters. Jean-Marie Guehenno told the 15-nation council that deploying more unarmed military observers "would have a potential to change the political dynamics on the ground," a diplomat said on condition of anonymity. Other envoys confirmed the remarks.
Syria and the United Nations signed a preliminary agreement yesterday on the terms of a ceasefire monitoring mission but the deal skirted the vital issue of air assets, Edmond Mulet, deputy head of the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, told the council. Mulet said that Syria and the world body have agreed to sort out the issue later, though he emphasised that use of aircraft "will be vital to the mission," a diplomat said.
UN leader Ban Ki-moon also demanded that Syria allow a "major humanitarian field operation" by UN agencies to help the estimated one million people struggling in the 13-month old crisis.
Call for retaliation
Observers visited a rural town in Daraa, where the uprising against Bashar Al Assad began 13 months ago. Amateur video footage posted on the Internet showed the team's head, Colonel Ahmad Himmiche, wearing a UN-style turquoise bullet-proof vest as he walks through a crowd of protesters.
A demonstrator wraps his arm around Himmiche and shouts: "The people want the execution of Bashar [Al Assad]," as Himmiche, who has to act as a neutral observer, looks ill at ease.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Syrian forces were shooting at activists in the town of Herak, in southern Syria, shortly after the UN team left the area Thursday.
— AFP
