The Russian steps came as Syria’s state-run media asserted that the
government had begun to comply with the terms of a cease-fire plan
brokered by Kofi Annan, the special envoy of the United Nations and Arab
League. It requires Syrian forces to pull back from major population
centers by Tuesday.
Activist Web sites reported the opposite picture, saying the Syrian
military shelled and shot at targets mostly in and around the cities of
Idlib, Homs and Dara’a, the chronic trouble areas in President Bashar al-Assad’s
13-month-old effort to crush the uprising against him. The Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based exile group with contacts
in Syria, said at least 18 people were killed.
The United States, which has led the Western pressure on Mr. Assad to step down and has agreed to provide nonlethal equipment
to the anti-Assad resistance, said it had seen no evidence that the
Syrian government had begun to comply with the cease-fire plan. “What
we’ve seen, frankly, is an intensification of artillery bombardments in
major population centers like Homs and Idlib,” a State Department
spokesman, Mark Toner, told reporters in Washington.
The Russian Foreign Ministry announced on its Twitter account
that the Syrian foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, would hold talks in
Moscow with his counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, on Tuesday — the
deadline for compliance with the initial phase of Mr. Annan’s cease-fire
plan — and that representatives of the National Coordination Committee,
an opposition group inside Syria, would visit the Kremlin for talks
April 17-18.
Mr. Lavrov, who has strongly defended Russia’s support for Syria’s
government but has been increasingly critical of Mr. Assad’s behavior,
said during a visit to Azerbaijan on Wednesday that he must comply with
the cease-fire plan. But he also admonished the so-called “Friends of
Syria” group of anti-Assad countries, which met in Turkey with exile
Syrian opposition groups this past weekend, not to provide weapons to
rebel combatants, as some of those countries have suggested.
“Even if the Syrian opposition were armed to the teeth, it would not be
able to beat the government’s forces,” Mr. Lavrov said in remarks
carried by Russian news agencies.
There was anecdotal evidence on Tuesday that Syrian security forces had
reduced their presence in some hotspots in the suburbs of Damascus. In
Saqba, a district 15 minutes east of the Syrian capital where frequent
clashes and protests have taken place, a reporter did not see any tanks
or armored vehicles. But military checkpoints dotted the approach to the district center and
security officers checked all cars and demanded identification of all
young men. Cinderblock shelters and tents had been erected for the
soldiers, suggesting the government foresaw an indefinite crisis. Most shops were open, and people were cleaning and fixing them up.
Shopkeepers said they had kept them closed ever since in a general
strike after a government crackdown two months ago, but were now
reopening as part of a coordinated decision by local protest leaders.
People spoke openly against the government in the shops and streets,
despite the heavy security presence. Abu Fahad, 30, a protest organizer who declined to give his full name
for safety reasons, said in his upscale furniture store in Saqba that
protesters would keep demonstrating until 2014, the end of Mr. Assad’s
term, if necessary.
“Every Friday Prayer means a demonstration for us in Saqba,” he said.
“The regime tries to close all mosques and prevent prayers on Fridays,
but they cannot.”
He said it was the government that was frightened, not the protesters.
“On every corner and street there is a security checkpoint,” he said.
“Not to frighten us, but because the regime is afraid.”
Source: New York Times
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