Car bomb kills 13 as Assad and envoy talk peace in Damascus

Published on 22/10/2012 00:53

A CAR bomb killed 13 people in central Damascus yesterday as president Bashar al-Assad told the international mediator seeking a truce in Syria’s civil war that the key to any political solution was to stop arming rebels.

The bomb exploded outside a police station in the mainly Christian central Bab Touma district of the capital while Assad held talks with United Nations-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who is pushing for a temporary ceasefire to mark the Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha.

State news agency SANA said the president said Syria supported “any sincere effort to find a political solution to the crisis, based on respect for Syrian sovereignty and rejecting foreign intervention.”

Any proposal “must be centred around the principle of halting the terrorism and ... commitment by the countries involved in supporting, arming and harbouring the terrorists in Syria to stop these actions”, SANA quoted Mr Assad as saying.

Speaking after his meeting Mr Brahimi said: “Everyone can start this [ceasefire] when they want, today or tomorrow for example, for the period of the Eid and beyond.”