UN Live Blog

A car belonging to United Nations monitors was damaged by an explosion while they toured the central Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun on Tuesday but none of the monitors was hurt, a member of the observer team said.

The monitor told Reuters by telephone that the seven-strong team had lost their cars and were trying to organise a safe return to their base. Another monitor and a member of the Free Syrian Army said they were with FSA rebels. [Reuters]

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, has condemned the Damascus attacks.

A statement issued by secretary general’s office said:

 

The Secretary-General strongly condemns today’s attacks in Damascus, which killed more than 50 persons and injured scores of others. He expresses his sympathy to the victims and their families. The Secretary-General reiterates his urgent call on all sides fully to comply with their obligations to cease armed violence in all its forms, and to protect civilians, as well as to distance themselves from indiscriminate bombings and other terrorist acts. All sides must abide by Security Council resolution 2043 and the six point plan, which commit the parties to a peaceful resolution of the crisis. The Secretary-General underscores once more the need for immediate and full cooperation with UN efforts aimed at ending all violence and human rights violations, securing humanitarian access and facilitating a Syrian-led political transition leading to a democratic and plural political system in Syria. The United Nations is committed to continue doing all it can to achieve these goals.

The head of the UN military observer mission in Syria, Major General Robert Mood, says that it was the responsibility of the Syrian army to make the first move to halt the violence.

"If you have two individuals using on each other all their weapons, who is going to be the first one to move the finger? Who is going to be the first one to make the move?" Mood asked, during a visit to the battered central city of  Homs.

"My approach to that is that the strongest part needs to make the first move," he told reporters.

"I was referring to the Syrian government and the Syrian army. They have the strength, they have the position and they also have the potential generosity to make the first step in a good direction," he said, when pressed on whether he was speaking about the regime forces. [AFP]

Syria derided UN chief Ban Ki-moon as biased and called his comments "outrageous" after he blamed the regime for widespread cease-fire violations the latest sign of trouble for an international peace plan many expect to fail.

In new fighting on Saturday, activists said regime forces battled army defectors near President Bashar Assad's summer palace in a coastal village and shelled a Damascus suburb in pursuit of gunmen.

State media said government troops foiled an attempt by armed men in rubber boats to land on Syria's coast, the first reported attempt by rebels to infiltrate from the sea.

The regime's verbal attack on the UN secretary general raised new concerns that Assad is playing for time to avoid compliance with a plan that could eventually force him out of office.

[Source:AP] 

Syria's exiled Muslim Brotherhood has urged UN chief Ban Ki-moon to acknowledge that Damascus had failed to honour a peace plan and to suspend its membership of the world body.

"We ask Ban Ki-moon to announce that Assad's government has failed to honour the peace plan and to declare the plan finished ... at a time when dozens of innocent people are dying," the group said in a statement issued in the UK on Friday.

It also called for "the freezing of Syria's membership in the international organisation, until a transitional government that represents the Syrian people's will is established."

The Brotherhood, which is banned in Syria but represented in the opposition Syrian National Council, said the UN should sever all ties with Assad's government, which it said was made up of "hooligans that have taken over the state and Syrian society." [AFP]

The Syrian National Council (SNC), an opposition group that has been acting as an interlocuter for foreign governments, has called for an emergency UN Security Council meeting.

It has also accused the government killing more than 100 people in Hama in recent days.

"We are calling for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council so that it can issue a resolution to protect civilians in Syria," the SNC said in a statement.

"Hama in recent days, and following a visit by UN observers, witnessed a series of crimes... that left more than 100 people dead and hundreds wounded because of heavy shelling.

"The city also witnessed summary executions, raids, arrests and the flight of residents," the exile group added.

[AFP]

 

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem on Wednesday said a plan for 250 international observers was a "reasonable and logical" number to monitor a days-old ceasefire in the country, after the United Nations said it may need more troops and aircraft.

Moualem, speaking through an English translator during a press briefing in Beijing, said he did not know why more observers would be needed, and said that the U.N. could use Syrian aircraft if needed.

-Reuters

Wives of two UN ambassadors make an appeal to Asma al-Assad, the wife of the Syrian president, to 'stop your husband'.

 

Arab leaders meeting in Qatar have urged Syria to cooperate with a peace mission by allowing free access to United Nations monitors on the ground.

UN-Arab league envoy Kofi Annan says a six day old truce is not holding up.

There is now an impasse which seems to be about whether or not to continue with Annan's peace plan, or whether to meet calls by some to arm the rebels.

Al Jazeera's Steve Chao reports from Doha. 

The United States warned that heightened violence in Syria threatens the sending of a full UN ceasefire observer mission.

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said on Monday new attacks by government forces "call into question the wisdom and viability" of sending the full 200 international monitors.

The first unarmed UN military observers started work in Damascus on Monday. The UN Security Council has said, however, that the full force cannot go if there is a safety threat.

"We are gravely concerned ... that the violence continues, that the government seems to continue, if not in recent days intensify, bombardment in Homs in particular," Rice told reporters.

The government violence was "unacceptable" and against commitments made to UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, she added.

Should the cessation of hostilities started last Thursday collapse the United States and the UN Security Council believe "it will call into question the wisdom and viability of sending in the full monitoring presence," Rice said.

A UN Security Council resolution passed on Saturday approved only an advance mission of 30 observers. The full force will require a new UN resolution.

Syrian forces shelled the flashpoint city of Homs on Monday and killed 12 civilians in battles with rebels in Idlib, activists said.

[Source: AFP] 

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