PARIS — Saudi Arabia Friday called for adopting firm action against President Bashar Al-Assad's regime as world powers asked the United Nations to use the threat of sanctions to force change in the violence-wracked country. At the third “Friends of Syria” meeting here, Prince Abdul Aziz Bin Abdullah, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, said the dance of death should not be allowed to continue in Syria and the regime should be held accountable for the massacre of innocent people there. The Syrian regime, he said, should give up its obduracy and accept in total the plan advanced by the United Nations and Arab League peace envoy Kofi Annan. US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton rounded on Russia and China, telling delegates from over 100 countries that the two veto-wielding UN Security Council members were blocking progress toward peace. She also hailed an accelerating wave of defections in Assad's inner circle. The meeting insisted that Assad would have to quit and sought a resolution under the UN Chapter 7, which provides for possible sanctions and military action. But it stressed that the immediate action under Article 41 provided only for non-military intervention. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle backed the call for non-military action for the time being, saying force should only be discussed “when the implementation of the sanctions has not really made the progress they should have”. French President Francois Hollande also pushed for the Security Council to get tough with Damascus, while the Syrian opposition called for humanitarian corridors and a no-fly zone. Annan's peace plan which insists on a cessation of violence by all sides has made little headway and activists say an estimated 16,500 people have now died in the 16-month uprising. A meeting last weekend in Geneva agreed to a transition plan that the Syria opposition, the West and Russia have interpreted differently, but Clinton insisted the plan amounted to a call for Assad to go. “It is imperative to go back to the Security Council and demand implementation of Kofi Annan's plan including the Geneva communique,” Clinton said. “We should go back and ask for a resolution in the Security Council that imposes real and immediate consequences for non-compliance, including sanctions,” she added. “The only way that will change is if every nation represented here directly and urgently makes it clear, that Russia and China will pay a price. They are holding up progress, blockading it,” Clinton said. Russia reacted immediately with Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov “categorically” rejecting “the formulation that Russia supports Assad's regime in the situation that has developed in Syria”. The Friends of Syria talks in the French capital took place amid news that a general from Assad's most trusted inner circle had defected in what would be a major blow to the regime as it battles the opposition. “Gen. Munaf Tlass defected three days ago,” a source close to the Syrian government said on condition of anonymity. — Agencies
