Birds of a feather…… Meanwhile Obama and Pantsuits consider another strongly worded memo to Assad.
DAMASCUS, Syria, Feb. 7 (UPI) — Russia’s foreign minister said top diplomats were preparing to tell Syrian President Bashar Assad Tuesday quick reforms are needed to stabilize the country. “We’ve repeatedly urged Syria to speed up reforms, and we are continuing to do so,” Sergei Lavrov said before he and Mikhail Fradkov, director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, flew to Damascus.
Russia “firmly intends to seek the swiftest stabilization of the situation in Syria on the basis of the swiftest implementation of democratic reforms whose time has come,” the Foreign Ministry said Monday as Washington closed its embassy in Syria and withdrew its staff in the face of escalating mayhem.
“The deteriorating security situation that led to the suspension of our diplomatic operations makes clear once more the dangerous path Assad has chosen and the regime’s inability to fully control Syria,” State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland said in Washington.
Poland will now provide emergency consular services to Americans in Syria, and Ambassador Robert Ford will “continue his work and engagement with the Syrian people as head of our Syria team in Washington,” the State Department said.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said Russia and China, in vetoing the U.N. measure to sanction Syria, would have further bloodshed “on their conscience.”
Britain also recalled its ambassador for consultations Monday, with Foreign Secretary William Hague describing the mounting Syrian violence as yet more evidence Assad must surrender power.
The Russian meeting in Syria — a key Middle Eastern client state of Moscow since 1971 — comes three days after Russia and China vetoed a U.N. Security Council measure condemning Assad’s brutal crackdown on protesters and calling for him to be replaced by a unity government.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice called the vetoes “disgusting,” and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denounced them as a “travesty.”
“There are some in the West who have given evaluations of the vote on Syria in the United Nations Security Council that sound, I would say, indecent and perhaps on the verge of hysterical,” Lavrov said. “Those who get angry are rarely right.”
He said Russia had been willing to come to a consensus with other council members, but its proposed amendments were shot down Saturday and the resolution was put to a vote in a “hasty” way that all but invited Russia’s veto to make Moscow look bad.
“We asked [supporters of the anti-Assad resolution] to wait a few days before putting it to a vote,” so he and Fradkov could travel to Syria for the Assad meeting, Lavrov said. “But they thought it more important to transfer the blame for what is happening.
“Their unwillingness to wait for us to return from Damascus is a clear case of disrespect,” he said. “It is sad that the resolution met such a fate.” Moscow announced the high-stakes mission hours before the Security Council vote.
Syrian forces killed at least 47 people in the city of Homs Monday, the opposition Local Coordination Committees said. (read more)