DAMASCUS — Deaths of unarmed civilians and defections of generals and soldiers continued in Syria Wednesday as Russian media reported the West was seeking to persuade Moscow to host President Bashar Al-Assad in exile as a way out of the escalating crisis. Ahead of a Paris meeting of the so-called “Friends of Syria," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 70 more people were killed in violence across the country. Moscow also denied holding talks with Washington about offering Assad exile as a way out of 16 months of bloodshed, which the Britain-based observatory says has claimed more than 16,500 lives. “The situation with the future of ... Assad is not being discussed with the United States," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russia's Interfax news agency. Earlier, Moscow's Kommersant daily had quoted a diplomat as saying Western nations led by the US were making “active attempts" to persuade Moscow to offer a home to Assad. But the report said Moscow objected to the idea, and Ryabkov stressed that Russia rejected a foreign solution to the brutal fighting now tearing apart its closest remaining Middle East ally. The divide was further underscored when a general became the 15th such high-ranking officer to defect, crossing into Turkey with two colonels, as well as soldiers and their families, a Turkish diplomat said. Meanwhile, Turkey's military announced that the bodies of the two pilots of a Turkish jet downed by Syria on June 22 have been found at the bottom of the eastern Mediterranean sea. With relations between the two neighbors plunging, Assad in an interview accused Ankara of giving logistical backing to Syrian “terrorists." “Turkey's desire to interfere in Syria's internal affairs has put it in a position which unfortunately makes it a party to all the bloody activities," he told the daily Cumhuriyet. — Agencies
