Beirut (AsiaNews) - UN secretary general Ban
Ki-moon is proposing to replace the mission of military observers in Syria
- designed to monitor a nonexistent ceasefire - with a civil mission. The aim is to find a political solution to the
conflict and deal with issues such as human rights. He advanced this idea yesterday
to the Security Council, due to be discussed next Wednesday and voted on July 18.
The Ban Ki-moon proposal is to a certain extent the formal admission of the
futility of the mission of 300 military observers - the deployment of which was
part of the peace plan drawn up by Kofi Annan .
But it is likely to prove impossible to put into action with the predictable
veto of the opposing domestic and international sides in.
In fact yesterday at the Paris summit of the "Friends of Syria" (in
the photo, the meeting in Tunis) more than 100 states approved a motion that
calls for new UN sanctions against the government Damascus, excluding the
possibility that President Assad be part of the transition to peace and also
the use of force or threat to use it.
On the sidelines of this meeting, U.S Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said
that China and Russia "must pay a price" for their
defense of the regime in Damascus.
A statement defined "unfair" by the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister,
Gennady Gatilov.
On the domestic front, the defection of Tlas Manaf, the Republican Guard
general - considered loyal to Assad - and a personal friend of Syrian President
is causing great commotion. For the French Foreign Minister Lauren Fabius the
incident shows that even in the narrower circle of Assad supporters are beginning
to realise "you can not sustain a butcher." (PD)