DAMASCUS (AFP/Reuters) - Syria sought on Wednesday to reassure the United Nations over its willingness to implement a ceasefire despite violence and casualties still reported in various parts of the country.
Foreign ministry spokesman Jihad Makdisi told AFP a protocol outlining a UN mission to oversee the fragile six-day ceasefire was nearly completed and that discussions with an advance team of UN observers had been positive. “We are about to finalise it,” Makdisi said, referring to the protocol. “Discussions with UN observers have been constructive and both parties agree on 90 percent of the points,” he added.
Makdisi said talks with the advance team would continue Wednesday afternoon. The protocol will pave the way for UN observers to fan across the country to monitor a truce aimed at ending 13 months of violence that monitors say has left more than 11,000 people dead.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon was due to report to the Security Council later on Wednesday on progress made by the advance team. He has made it clear the UN mission could not go forward if Damascus does not cooperate and guarantee the observers safe access across the country.
The team arrived in Damascus on Sunday and is to be expanded to 30 in the coming days.
Approved under a UN Security Council resolution, it is to be reinforced in the longer term with up to 250 international monitors, but this will require a new resolution.
France said 14 foreign ministers would attend a meeting on Syria in Paris on Thursday to send a strong message to Bashar al-Assad’s regime to implement the peace plan.
“The obstacles to the UN observers’ mission that Damascus is putting in place and the Syrian regime’s continued repression, contrary to its commitments, calls for a strong reaction from the international community,” French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said in a statement.
Washington earlier warned that hopes of a larger mission in Syria were being jeopardised by the persistent violence, which saw at least 14 people killed on Wednesday, seven of them civilians, according to monitors.
Meanwhile, Turkey has intercepted a vessel in the Mediterranean suspected of carrying weapons and ammunition to Syria, a diplomatic source told AFP on Wednesday.
“We received information that the vessel has a cargo of arms and ammunition headed for Syria,” the source said on condition of anonymity, adding that Turkish authorities would search the vessel later in the day.
The Antigua and Barbuda flagged “Atlantic Cruiser” belongs to a German company, the source added. The German shipping firm denied allegations Monday that its vessel was carrying Iranian arms to Syria, violating EU sanctions against the Damascus regime.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of tougher measures if he squanders his “last chance” by failing to implement the Kofi Annan peace plan. “It is obviously quite concerning” that, while UN observers are starting to deploy in Syria, the “guns of the Assad regime are once again firing in Homs, Idlib and elsewhere”, Clinton told reporters in Brussels.
“We are at a crucial turning point,” the chief US diplomat said on the eve of a high-level meeting in Paris designed to consider further pressure on Assad.