Unite to help stop bloody conflict in Syria, UN is told

Russia clashed with the United States over Syria again yesterday – despite pleas from Mr Ban for the Security Council to speak with one voice.

The UN secretary-general led a ministerial debate in the council on challenges from the Arab Spring. It is certain to be dominated by the year-long conflict in Syria, which he said had led the entire region into uncertainty and subjected citizens in several cities to disproportionate violence.

But although Russia and the US both called for an end to the bloody, year-long conflict, they did so in different terms, leaving doubts over the prospects of breaking a deadlock in the Security Council over a new resolution.

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton rejected any equivalence between the “premeditated murders” carried out by president Bashar Assad’s “military machine” and the acts of civilians under siege who had been driven to self-defence. Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said Syrian authorities “bear a huge share of responsibility” but insisted opposition fighters and extremists, including al-Qaeda, were also committing violent and terrorist acts.

Mr Lavrov said if the priority was to end violence and provide humanitarian aid to Syrian people, “then at this stage we should not talk about who was the first to start, but rather discuss realistic and feasible approaches which would allow [us] to achieve the ceasefire as a priority.”

Mrs Clinton said the Security Council could not “stand silent when governments massacre their own people, threatening regional peace and security in the process”.

Mr Ban said the Syrian crisis had led the entire region into uncertainty and subjected citizens in several cities to disproportionate violence.

Russia, Syria’s most powerful ally, and China have vetoed two US and European-backed Security Council resolutions that would have condemned Assad’s bloody crackdown, saying they were unbalanced and demanded only the government stop attacks, not the opposition. Moscow accused western powers of fuelling the conflict by backing the rebels.

Earlier this month, the US proposed a new draft that tried to take a more balanced approach, but diplomats said Russia and China rejected it, saying it was still unbalanced.

Mr Lavrov flew to New York from Cairo, where he had a tense meeting with Arab League foreign ministers. They have endorsed a plan for Assad to hand power to his vice-president, but the Russians are adamantly opposed to any resolution endorsing regime change.

In the end, the Arab League and Mr Lavrov agreed on a five-point plan the Russia foreign minister said could lead to an early solution of the Syrian crisis: an immediate cease-fire, a clause preventing foreign intervention, assurances about humanitarian aid, an impartial monitoring mechanism and an endorsement of the mission by former UN chief Kofi Annan, the new UN-Arab League special envoy to Syria.

Foreign Secretary William Hague urged Russia to join diplomatic efforts to end the violence in Syria, as he warned the UN had “failed” in its duty. He chaired the UN Security Council meeting on the Arab Spring.

Syrian activists said yesterday that pro-government gunmen had killed at least 16 people – including children – in a rebel stronghold recaptured by the government in the embattled city of Homs, fuelling concerns the government is carrying out reprisals in territory it has captured.

State media in Damascus, which often ignores activists’ claims, confirmed there had been killings in Homs but blamed “armed terrorists”, as it usually calls those behind the uprising.