NOVANEWS
Washington Post
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton also announced that the United States would contribute an additional $12.2 million for humanitarian aid to Syria, bringing the U.S. total since the uprising beganto $25 million, as well as “communications equipment” to “help activists organize, evade attacks by the regime, and connect to the outside world.”
Kofi Annan, the U.N. and Arab League envoy who met with Assad, is due to deliver a status report to the Security Council on Monday, and the statement directed him to “determine a timeline for next steps. . .if the killing continues.” Influential participants in the Friends group indicated that the timeline would constitute a deadline, perhaps a matter of weeks, for Assad’s compliance.
What the statement called the regime’s attempt to “manipulate” and “deceive the international community“ seemed to have generated a new level of resolve among countries, including the United States, that have long insisted Assad must step aside.
Speaker after speaker at the conference vowed what its host, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan, called “determined and committed” action, even as the problems and proposals that emerged seemed little different than when the Friends last met a month ago in Tunisia.
Clinton said at a news conference that “there is no more time for excuses or delay. This is the moment of truth.”
There is still little international appetite for a full-scale military intervention. But officials from several countries described consensus on a range of escalating steps to pressure the regime, aid opposition fighters and ensure that humanitarian assistance reaches the Syrian people.
Asked if his government’s resistance to allowing establishment of a protected “safe zone” for the opposition along its lengthy border with Syria had lessened, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davotoglu said “we will see what happens during these days, especially regarding the mission of Kofi Annan, and later we will look at all alternatives.”
“I am saying all alternatives,” Davotoglu repeated.
In an impassioned speech, Ghalioun appealed to all international supporters to give Syrians “the means to defend themselves,” and said that their liberation struggle was “moving into a new phase.”
In the wake of last week’s opposition meeting, the SNC has formed a “restructuring committee,” designed to increase the transparency of its deliberations.
At the same time, the Obama administration and others appear to have taken a more indirect approach to their support for the SNC, calling for all Syrians to unite around what a senior State Department official called “a concept and a vision going forward” rather than a specific group.
The Friends also agreed on several new initiatives, including formation of a working group to coordinate sanctions imposed by the United States and others against Assad and his government. The State Department official said the group would be a “clearing house of information on who is shipping arms, money to Assad to assist him in his killing, who is evading sanctions.”
A separate “accountability” program would train Syrians to collect information on government atrocities, to be used by a future Syrian government eventually to hold Assad and other officials responsible in international or domestic courts.
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