Damascus (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Nawaf al-Fares, Syrian ambassador to Iraq, has defected from the regime of Bashar al-Assad and the Baath Party. The fight against terrorism launched by the President has now become a "horrible massacre" against the Syrian people. The diplomat announced his resignation in a statement to the Qatari channel al-Jazeera.

"I urge all honest members of this party - he said - I to follow my path because the regime has turned it [the party] to an instrument to kill people and their aspiration to freedom." The ambassador appealed to the army to join the revolution and begin to defend the people and the homeland against foreign enemies, not by killing innocent people.

Fares, a Sunni Muslim born in Deir al-Zor, Syria's eastern city to the border with Iraq is a veteran of the Damascus government, active in the days of Hafez al-Assad, father of the President. He is the second leading diplomat who turns his back to the president. The first was Bassam Imadi, Syrian ambassador in Sweden, now a member of the Syrian National Council. Another major defection was that of Tlas Manaf, a general from a Sunni family and personal friend of Assad, who in recent weeks has left the country seeking asylum in France.

According Imadi defections are a sign that diplomats and members of the regime sense the imminent end of Assad. "We should consider [Fares] as someone very close to the regime - he said -  we should also remember that he is also calling on other ambassadors to resign, which means that others will follow suit".

Meanwhile, the UN has prepared a new plan to end the violence. The draft text - the fruit of the Paris conference of July 6 - orders the Syrian regime to cease "within ten days," the use of heavy weapons against rebellious cities'', or risk  "immediate" new economic and diplomatic sanctions as provided by Article 41 of the UN Charter.

There are no end to clashes between the army and rebels of the Free Syrian Army and foreign Islamist militants. Overnight there were clashes in the capital's neighborhoods and Ibril. In Homs attempts at reconciliation are in progress between the various families thanks to the "Mussalaha" launched by Christian religious leaders, Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox.