DAMASCUS — International envoy Kofi Annan said Monday he agreed with President Bashar Al-Assad on a new political “approach" to end Syria's 16-month-old conflict that he would put to the rebels. Stepping up efforts to halt the carnage which monitors say has cost more than 17,000 lives, the UN-Arab Leag?ue envoy was reportedly to travel on to Iran, Syria's close ally. “We discussed the need to end the violence and ways and means of doing so. We agreed an approach which I will share with the armed opposition," Annan said after meeting Assad in Damascus. The former UN chief said he had a “constructive" meeting with Assad, on his third such mission for talks on his six-point peace plan for Syria since he was appointed in February. “I had constructive and candid talks with President Assad," he told reporters at a Damascus hotel, echoing Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi who termed the meeting “constructive and good". Makdissi also said via Twitter that Assad would hold a separate meeting with Foreign Minister Walid Al-Moallem. Al-Watan newspaper, which is close to the government, said the Annan-Assad talks focused on the results of the Geneva meeting at the end of June of an international contact group on Syria. The meetings came as at least 20 people were killed across Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, and a day after nearly 100 people died in violence. The opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) slammed Annan's decision to meet Assad, saying thousands have been killed in the country despite an April ceasefire that is a key point of the envoy's plan. Ahead of his trip to Damascus, Annan, whose military observers in Syria have been grounded due to escalating violence, admitted his peace blueprint has so far failed to stem the bloodshed, in remarks published by French newspaper Le Monde. And, in an defiant interview late on Sunday, Assad told German public broadcaster ARD that many countries were undermining Annan's initiative. The United States is “part of the conflict. They offer the umbrella and political support to those gangs to... destabilize Syria," said the embattled Syrian leader.
