(ANSAmed) - BEIRUT, MAY 31 - The 48-hour ultimatum Syrian rebels
gave President Bashar Al Assad last night seems a bit of a
blunted weapon, enjoining him to cease the repression underway
and to comply with the six points of the plan by UN and Arab
League envoy Kofi Annan, on the day in which at least 62 people
are recorded as having been killed (mostly civilians) by
government troops bombing the city of Houla, according to the
Syrian National Council (SNC). And while from Washington the
White House claims that ''those supporting Assad's regime are on
the wrong wide of history'', the UN Security Council met in the
evening. Russia once again said that it is against additional
sanctions, and alongside China has reiterated its opposition to
any military intervention. The latter option has, however and at
least for the time being, been ruled out by a number of those
involved. Meanwhile, the Syrian honorary consul in California,
Hazem Chehabi, decided to resign after the Houla massacre.
According to National Public Radio (NPR), he said that he ''could no longer sit by and watch such barbaric crimes''. ''The joint leaders of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) inside Syria have given the regime 48 hours to apply the Security Council resolution,'' said Colonel Wassem Saad Ad Din in a Youtube video. In the footage, recorded according to the caption in Rastan (between Homs and Hama and known as a rebel stronghold), the defector colonel said that if by noon (11 AM in Italy) on Friday the regime had not halted its repression ''against defenseless civilians'', withdrawn its troops and freed all political prisoners, the FSA would no longer be bound by the ceasefire and ''will defend and protect civilians, their villages and their cities.'' On the ground there was the latest in a long string of days filled with dead and injured: Norwegian general Robert Mood, commander of the UN observers in the country, confirmed yesterday's reports by the Local Coordinating Committees of Syrian activists that the bodies of 13 people who had suffered summary ''execution'' had been found in Deir Az Zor (far eastern part of the country), as had happened on May 25 in Houla, where the SNC has reported more bombing. State-run news agency SANA simply reported that funerals would be held today for the 25 soldiers and police killed by not-better-identified ''groups of armed terrorists'', while the Syrian Violations Documentation Centre (VDC, vdc-sy.org) reports at least 20 killed, including 18 civilians and 2 deserters. Other activist sources say that about 60 have been killed across the country. Following yesterday's expulsion of Syrian diplomats from the main European countries, the United States, Canada, Australia, and Japan, today Damascus has declared the Dutch charge d'affaires in Syria to be a ''persona non grata''. However, among the Western diplomatic offices raising their voice against Assad's regime, only Belgium yesterday explicitly called for the sending of foreign military forces into Syria. Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said that the international community ''will get nothing'' from the Syrian president without a military presence in the country. It is not a matter of organising ''an intervention like that in Libya'' in 2011, the Belgian diplomat said, but of creating ''security zones'' in Syria protected ''by an international force''. European countries and the United States have ruled out such an option, saying that it is impossible given the Russian and Chinese vetoes within the UN Security Council, which met last night. The latter position is shared by Italian foreign Minister Giulio Terzi who, underscoring the ''extremely high and almost absolute priority'' given to resolving the crisis, also asked for ''the most cohesive handling'' of it possible by the international community from a political standpoint, noting that armed intervention is not a realistic possibility. Moscow has reiterated its opposition to the possibility of fresh sanctions, proposed by the United States, while Great Britain has made it known that over the coming days it will be discussing how to step up pressure on the Damascus government: the key point is the unity of the Security Council, said British ambassador Mark Lyall Grant at the end of the latter's meeting. The Turkish government on the other hand, which for over a year has been threatening to take severe action against Assad, reiterated that it had not yet made a decision on the possibility of a buffer zone along the border with Syria to prevent the possible inflow of tens of thousands of new refugees. (ANSAmed).
According to National Public Radio (NPR), he said that he ''could no longer sit by and watch such barbaric crimes''. ''The joint leaders of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) inside Syria have given the regime 48 hours to apply the Security Council resolution,'' said Colonel Wassem Saad Ad Din in a Youtube video. In the footage, recorded according to the caption in Rastan (between Homs and Hama and known as a rebel stronghold), the defector colonel said that if by noon (11 AM in Italy) on Friday the regime had not halted its repression ''against defenseless civilians'', withdrawn its troops and freed all political prisoners, the FSA would no longer be bound by the ceasefire and ''will defend and protect civilians, their villages and their cities.'' On the ground there was the latest in a long string of days filled with dead and injured: Norwegian general Robert Mood, commander of the UN observers in the country, confirmed yesterday's reports by the Local Coordinating Committees of Syrian activists that the bodies of 13 people who had suffered summary ''execution'' had been found in Deir Az Zor (far eastern part of the country), as had happened on May 25 in Houla, where the SNC has reported more bombing. State-run news agency SANA simply reported that funerals would be held today for the 25 soldiers and police killed by not-better-identified ''groups of armed terrorists'', while the Syrian Violations Documentation Centre (VDC, vdc-sy.org) reports at least 20 killed, including 18 civilians and 2 deserters. Other activist sources say that about 60 have been killed across the country. Following yesterday's expulsion of Syrian diplomats from the main European countries, the United States, Canada, Australia, and Japan, today Damascus has declared the Dutch charge d'affaires in Syria to be a ''persona non grata''. However, among the Western diplomatic offices raising their voice against Assad's regime, only Belgium yesterday explicitly called for the sending of foreign military forces into Syria. Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said that the international community ''will get nothing'' from the Syrian president without a military presence in the country. It is not a matter of organising ''an intervention like that in Libya'' in 2011, the Belgian diplomat said, but of creating ''security zones'' in Syria protected ''by an international force''. European countries and the United States have ruled out such an option, saying that it is impossible given the Russian and Chinese vetoes within the UN Security Council, which met last night. The latter position is shared by Italian foreign Minister Giulio Terzi who, underscoring the ''extremely high and almost absolute priority'' given to resolving the crisis, also asked for ''the most cohesive handling'' of it possible by the international community from a political standpoint, noting that armed intervention is not a realistic possibility. Moscow has reiterated its opposition to the possibility of fresh sanctions, proposed by the United States, while Great Britain has made it known that over the coming days it will be discussing how to step up pressure on the Damascus government: the key point is the unity of the Security Council, said British ambassador Mark Lyall Grant at the end of the latter's meeting. The Turkish government on the other hand, which for over a year has been threatening to take severe action against Assad, reiterated that it had not yet made a decision on the possibility of a buffer zone along the border with Syria to prevent the possible inflow of tens of thousands of new refugees. (ANSAmed).
