A new Arab and European bid to secure UN action over Syria’s crackdown on dissent hit immediate Russian opposition even as the death toll spiked, with activists reporting 120 people killed in two days, Khaleej Times reports.
The Gulf Arab states and Turkey, which have spearheaded regional condemnation of the Damascus regime, were to meet in Istanbul on Saturday for talks expected to be dominated by the quest for a tough UN Security Council resolution.
However, Russia made clear that the Arab and European draft formally submitted by Morocco late on Friday crossed “our red lines,” raising the prospect of lengthy wrangling over the wording of the text, which its supporters want put to the vote in the next week.
The head of an Arab League monitoring mission said unrest had soared this week “in a significant way,” especially in the flashpoint central cities of Homs and Hama and in the northern Idlib region.
A previous European draft that would have threatened “targeted measures” against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime was vetoed by Beijing and Moscow in October.
Backers of the new resolution hope that critics — who also include India and South Africa — will be swayed by the tough new stance of the Arab League, which last weekend demanded that Assad hand his powers to his deputy to pave the way for a national unity government ahead of elections.
