Strasbourg, 16/02/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 16 February, the French minister for foreign affairs, Alain Juppé, said that halting the massacres in Syria would be a subject on which the international community could agree. His meeting on the same day with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, however, produced no positive outcome. Juppé explained: “We will, perhaps, be able to meet again on a very short-term objective, that of halting the massacres.” He added: “Everything should be done to get the violence to cease and for large-scale humanitarian assistance to be provided to the Syrian people.”
While saying that he was open to dialogue, Lavrov once again refused to give his opinion about the French proposal to create “humanitarian corridors”. The vice minister for foreign affairs in Russia, Guennadi Gatilov, stated: “No concrete discussion took place with regard to the French initiative. There is nothing concrete in what they have said, for the moment.” On the previous day, Lavrov underlined that with regard to the subject of the corridors, “one thing is for sure - all the different Syrian parties must be in agreement about what is being proposed”.
No Russian support for resolution. Russia is not expected to support the draft resolution on Syria, submitted to a vote at the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday evening, 16 February. One anonymous source indicated that “the current form of the draft is inequitable and does not take into account our position”. On Wednesday, Lavrov already threatened not to support the text. He explained that “if the resolution is partisan and ignores the fact that people have been killed by armed opposition groups, then it will not be useful”.
New Syrian constitution. On Wednesday, Syria announced that a new draft constitution would be submitted to a referendum on 26 February. According to the text, “the political system will be based on the principle of political pluralism and power will be democratically exercised through elections”. The clause on the primacy of the Baath Party dating back to the constitution of 1973, which explains that this party is both head of state and society, is removed from the new text.
The spokesperson for Catherine Ashton, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, emphasised that since the beginning of the uprising in March, the regime had promised many reforms but that these had remained a dead letter. The spokesperson also pointed out that President Assad had lost all legitimacy and credibility. According to the president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, the proposal to submit a new constitution to a referendum “when a nation is at war is inconceivable”.
Arrested activists. On Thursday, 14 activists, including the blogger Razan Ghazzawi and the director of the Syrian Centre for the Media and Freedom of Expression, Mazen Darwish, were arrested by the security forces at the organisation's premises in Damascus. (CG/transl.fl)