democracy activists vowed more protests against President Bashar Al-Assad for Friday, as his regime came under increased international pressure and faced “massacre” accusations. Ahead of a convoy of troops and tanks reportedly converging on Jisr Al-Shughour in northwest Syria, hundreds of the flashpoint town's residents were fleeing to Turkey, the nearest foreign haven. The number of Syrians who have fled to Turkey has increased to 2,500, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Thursday. Speaking from hospital beds, some of the wounded refugees charged that Iranian forces in black uniforms had been taking an active part in crushing the pro-democracy protests. Britain, meanwhile, said it stood by allegations that Iran was helping Syria violently crush the protests, after the British envoy in Tehran was summoned to the Foreign Ministry over the claims. Adding to pressure on Damascus, the UN atomic watchdog voted Thursday to report Syria to the UN Security Council in New York over allegations it built an undeclared nuclear reactor that was then destroyed by Israeli bombs. At a closed-door meeting in Vienna of the International Atomic Energy Agency, a majority of countries voted in favor of a resolution proposed by the United States, diplomats at the meeting said. Russia and China, among the countries which voted against the resolution, said in statements earlier that they saw no reason for such action. At the Security Council itself, Western powers have begun debating a draft resolution put forward by Britain and France demanding an end to the violence and an arms embargo on Syria. But Russia on Thursday said it opposed the Security Council adopting any resolution on Syria, risking a major dispute with the West. “The situation in this country, in our opinion, does not pose a threat to international peace and security,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said, quoted by Russian state media. But at an international meeting in Abu Dhabi on the Libya conflict, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe Thursday accused the Syrian government of “massacring” its civilians. “The attitude of Syria is unacceptable,” he said. In Geneva, Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said: “We are receiving an increasing number of alarming reports pointing to the Syrian government's continuing efforts to ruthlessly crush civilian protests.”
