Brussels, 30/07/2012 (Agence Europe) - French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Monday 30 July that Paris would be calling for an emergency meeting of foreign ministers in the United Nations Security Council to be convened before the end of the week in order to discuss Syria. “As France is to assume the chairmanship of the UN Security Council on 1 August, we will call for a Security Council meeting, probably at ministerial level, before the end of this week in order to try both to stop the killing and prepare the political transition”, said Fabius, who will chair the meeting. “We have to try everything”, he said, referring to the attitude of Russia and China.
Fabius ruled out sending weapons to the Syrian opposition, a move which would contravene European sanctions. “According to the information we have, arms are being delivered by Qatar, Saudi Arabia and probably others … but not by us”, he said. He expressed his fears of a massacre in Aleppo as fighting continues. “The Syrian people are suffering agonies and the torturer is called Bashar El-Assad”, Fabius said.
On Saturday, French President François Hollande called for swift intervention by the Security Council. “I call once again on Russia and China to take into account the chaos and civil war that will ensue if Bashar El-Assed is not halted at some point”, he said. “His regime knows that it is living on borrowed time and, so, will use force right until the end”, the French president added, stating that the “only option” that will “reconcile and re-unite Syrians is for Bashar El-Assad to step down and for a transition government to be constituted”. “It is not too late, but each passing day brings repression, uprisings and, so, massacres”, he emphasised.
Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said on Twitter on Monday that, “with reports of 200,000 people fleeing fighting in Aleppo, it is certainly high time the UN Security Council to act”. On 28 July, with the start of the fighting in Aleppo, he had wondered if it was “too late for diplomacy. Or will all of the Levant have to burn?” He concluded: “Time to act”.
The head of the UN observers in Syria, General Babacar Gaye announced on Monday that he had seen intense artillery and mortar bombardment and destruction in the cities of Homs and Rastane. He stated that the “violence came from both sides”.
According to the Syrian Human Rights Observatory, more than 20,000 people, including almost 14,000 civilians, have been killed since the start of the conflict in March 2011. (CG/transl.rt)