Clinton Calls for ‘Immense Pressure’ on Assad After UN Veto
February 06, 2012, 10:44 AM ESTBy Glen Carey and Elizabeth Konstantinova
(Updates with Syrian army shelling in sixth paragraph, Russian Foreign Ministry comment in seventh.)
Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. will work with its allies to put “immense pressure” on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down after Russia vetoed a resolution aimed at ending in the fighting, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.
“Faced with a neutered Security Council, we have to redouble our efforts outside of the United Nations with those allies and partners who support the Syrian people’s right to have a better future,” Clinton told reporters in Sofia, Bulgaria yesterday. “Assad must go.”
The U.S. will also work to strengthen sanctions against the Syrian government and “expose those funding Assad’s regime,” she said.
Russia and China vetoed on Feb. 4 a proposal by Western and Arab countries that backed an Arab League plan to facilitate a political transition in Syria. It was the second time Russia blocked attempts at the UN to hold Assad accountable for a conflict that the UN says has killed more than 5,400 people.
The veto gives Assad a “license to kill,” Qatar’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Khalid Al Attiyah said at a security conference in Munich. “This is exactly what we feared.”
Syrian army shelling killed at least 22 people today in the city of Homs, a center of the uprising against Assad, where a hospital was struck, Al Arabiya reported, citing activists. The army used helicopters and rockets in the city and also shelled Idlib in the north and Zabadani near the Lebanese border.
Russian Weapons Sales
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, Mikhail Fradkov, will meet with Assad tomorrow in Damascus. Russia is counting on planned talks to encourage the Syrian government and its opponents to hold negotiations, the Foreign Ministry said.
“We hope that this meeting will promote the start of a process of dialogue between the different sides in Syria,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said by phone today.
Russia sells Syria weapons and has its only military base outside the former Soviet Union in the Syrian port of Tartus.
“The Russian government is not only unapologetically arming a government that is killing its own people, but also providing it with diplomatic cover,” Philippe Bolopion, UN director at Human Rights Watch in New York, said after the vote.
Foreign Provocateurs
Assad has blamed “terrorists” and foreign provocateurs for fomenting the protests, which began in March.
“The visit by Russian diplomats to Damascus next Tuesday indicates that Moscow knows the regime is in trouble,” Andrew J. Tabler, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said in response to e-mailed questions. “They want to try and see if they can prop it up by convincing it to reform -- the one thing this regime has proven incapable of doing for over four decades.”
A measure of Russia’s growing isolation is that South Africa and India, which had abstained in an October UN vote on Syria that was vetoed by Russia and China, broke ranks and sided with Arab and European nations.
Both countries took issue with Russia’s claims that concessions made by Arab and European Union negotiators in the final draft could still be interpreted as calls for an Assad ouster.
‘Brutal Civil War’
“The veto of the resolution on Syria will embolden Assad to even further brutalize his people,” Paul Sullivan, a specialist in Middle East security at Georgetown University in Washington, said in an e-mail. “There has been some consideration given to tightening sanctions, but without the arms embargo this will end up likely hurting the people it might be intended to help more than those in power.”
“We are trying to start a process of political transition,” Clinton said. “The failure to do so will increase the risk of a brutal civil war.”
The Arab League in November imposed sanctions on Syria and sent monitors to the country in an effort to stop the violence. The league later drafted a plan that called for the formation of a national unity government within two months to implement a peaceful handover of power.
The Russian Ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, said that, while he “would certainly agree tragic events are happening” in Syria, his country had “made an honest effort.” He said the Arab League “shall not count on the Council” for endorsement of a plan that imposes a timeline on when Assad should leave.
‘Lost the Arabs’
Russia’s alignment with Syria may put at stake the country’s relationship with oil-rich Gulf States led by Qatar that asked the Security Council to endorse their plan to convince Assad to delegate his powers to a deputy to pave way for elections.
“The Russians are doing this to help preserve their navy base in Tartus, their arms trade with Syria and their strategic position in the Eastern Mediterranean,” Sullivan said. “In the end Russia will lose its base. Russia has also in many ways lost the Arabs on this.”
--With assistance from Flavia Krause-Jackson in New York, Henry Meyer in Moscow and Mourad Haroutunian in Riyadh. Editors: Louis Meixler, John Brinsley, Ben Holland, Karl Maier.
To contact the reporters on this story: Glen Carey in Riyadh at gcarey8@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net
