Diplomats Press Syria’s Assad to Apply Peace Plan
The United States and its European partners are threatening new sanctions on Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime if he doesn’t act fast on a new peace plan, but the fractured and frustrated Syrian opposition is seeking quick military actions instead.
About 100 delegations are meeting Friday in Paris at a so-called Friends of Syria conference aimed at bolstering the Syrian resistance and pressing Syria’s allies to discuss transition strategies for the embattled country after 16 months of brutal crackdowns and civil war.
Hassan Hashimi, general secretary of the opposition Syrian National Council, said the international community is still moving too slowly.
Going into Friday’s meeting, he said he hopes to see a “tough stand” by diplomats, and a no-fly zone to prevent military forces “flying over defected soldiers and civilians and bombarding them.”
But military intervention is not on the immediate horizon. U.S. officials say they are focusing on economic pressure, and the Obama administration says it won’t intervene militarily or provide weapons to the Syrian rebels for what it considers to be an already too-militarized conflict.
And Russia, a key Syrian ally, isn’t taking part in Friday’s conference.
The French hosts, meanwhile, have staked out a firm stance against Assad.
“Bashar Assad must leave, he is a murderer,” French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Friday on French radio Europe-1 ahead of the conference. “Here you have more than 100 countries uniting in support of the Syrian resistance, with an extension of sanctions.”