French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Wednesday that Syrian leader Bashar Al-Assad is acting like a murderer and should be sent to the International Criminal Court. With diplomatic efforts to end the bloodshed in Syria faltering, the French leader urged humanitarian corridors to allow refugees out and aid in to the country. “We must obtain humanitarian corridors, and for that we must unblock the Russian veto and Chinese veto” at the UN Security Council, Sarkozy told Europe-1 radio. UN Security Council members are meeting to decide what to do next to try to stop the violence. In Moscow, the Russian foreign minister on Wednesday criticized Al-Assad for his “big delay” in implementing reforms, saying Damascus risked escalating the Syria crisis by failing to take Moscow's advice. In a rare public rebuke from Moscow to the Syrian leader, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Assad of “inertia” and said Russia's hugely controversial policy on Syria was not aimed at defending his regime. But he also offered little hint of an immediate shift in the policy of Russia, which has irritated the West with its insistence on equally blaming the violence on Syrian opposition rebels as much as the government forces. “The side in the conflict in Syria on which we have influence is the government of Bashar Al-Assad. Unfortunately, his actions, in practical terms, reflect our advice far from always and far from swiftly,” Lavrov said. In one of his most public displays of frustration with the Syrian leader, Lavrov said Assad's stabs at reform like ending the one party rule of the Baath party had been welcome but far too late. This developed as two prominent Syrian dissidents said Wednesday they have quit the main opposition group that emerged from the year-old uprising against the regime in Damascus. The resignations from the Syrian National Council dealt another blow to the opposition, which has been hobbled by disorganization and infighting since the popular revolt against Al-Assad started a year ago with protests calling for political reform. One of the dissidents who resigned, Kamal Al-Labwani, accused the leadership of the Syrian National Council of controlling the body's work while sidelining most of its 270 members. Meanwhile, Amnesty International said in a report that Syrian security forces routinely torture people detained during the year-old uprising. The London-based group said detainees are beaten with sticks, cords and rifle butts and sometimes suspended inside tires for further beatings. Al-Assad forces attacked rebel strongholds in various parts of Syria on Wednesday, intensifying their assault as the uprising entered its second year with a negotiated solution as far off as ever. The UN-Arab League envoy, Kofi Annan, said he had received a reply from Damascus to peace proposals that he laid out at the weekend, and wanted further clarifications. “But given the grave and tragic situation on the ground, everyone must realize that time is of the essence,” his spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said in a statement from Geneva.
