DAMASCUS: International peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi warned after meeting President Bashar al-Assad on Saturday that the worsening conflict in Syria poses a threat to the region and the world at large.
“The crisis is dangerous and getting worse, and it is a threat to the Syrian people, the region and the world,” said the newly-appointed Brahimi, who took over earlier this month from former UN chief Kofi Annan.
“We will make a great effort to make progress, and do our best … to help the Syrian people,” he said.
“The Syrian government has promised to help the (envoy’s) office in Damascus to do its work well,” said Brahimi, referring to the office headed by diplomat Mokhtar Lamani.
“We will be in touch with countries that have interests and influence in the Syrian issue,” he added.
Brahimi, a 78-year-old veteran Algerian troubleshooter, has also held talks with Foreign Minister Walid Muallem and members of the officially tolerated opposition since he arrived in the Syrian capital on Thursday.
United Nations spokeswoman Vannina Maestracci has said the UN-Arab League envoy would also hold talks on Saturday with Arab ambassadors and a European Union delegation, following the meeting with Assad.
Brahimi already warned on arrival that the conflict is “getting worse,” as underlined by the daily bloodshed.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which gathers information from a network of activists on the ground, said 132 people were killed in violence on Friday, including 100 civilians, 18 of whom died in the capital.
Brahimi held talks on Friday with Syrian opposition figures who said he was bringing “new ideas” to the peace effort, as blasts rocked Damascus and regime air strikes targeted rebel areas in the northern city of Aleppo.
He met with opposition groups tolerated by Assad’s regime such as the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change, which groups Arab nationalists, Kurds and socialists.
“We told Mr Brahimi… of our support for his efforts to resolve the crisis by ending the violence and killings, providing medical care and releasing political prisoners,” Hassan Abdel Azim, the bloc spokesman, told reporters.
Brahimi will “listen to the opposition and officials and crystalise new ideas and a plan that could succeed,” he said after the talks in a Damascus hotel, adding the peace initiative of his predecessor Kofi Annan would be amended.
“There will be new ideas and measures,” Abdel Azim told reporters.
He said a delegation of his group would leave on Saturday for China, a key Damascus ally, to urge Beijing to “put pressure on the regime to stop the violence, free detainees and allow peaceful protests.”
Brahimi is on his first Damascus visit since his appointment to replace Annan who quit the post after a hard-sought peace deal he brokered became a dead letter.
Fighting raged in several areas on Friday, including parts of the capital.
Regime forces used fighter jets and helicopter gunships to pound the northern city of Aleppo and the province of the same name, where fierce clashes also raged around a military airport, monitors said.
Warplanes bombarded the rebel-held towns of Al-Bab and Marea near Aleppo city, said the Syrian Observatory, adding that army forces and rebels fought around Minnigh military airport.
Despite shelling by regime forces, as seen in videos posted online, residents of Marea, Aleppo city and towns across the northern province came out for anti-regime demonstrations after the weekly Muslim prayers, activists said.
Protests were also reported in the provinces of Damascus, Idlib, Daraa in the south and Hama in central Syria, the Observatory said, and the army stormed the Sayyida Zeinab district of southeast Damascus, making several arrests.
In the central Aleppo district of Midan, regime forces launched air strikes on two rebel-held police stations, according to Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.
In the Hanano district of northeast Aleppo, air strikes destroyed another police station in rebel hands, Abdel Rahman said.
Near the capital, at least 15 soldiers were killed or wounded in an attack on their vehicle in the town of Douma, where clashes broke out near the municipal building, according to the Observatory.
The monitoring group estimates that more than 27,000 people have been killed since the uprising against Assad’s rule erupted in March last year. The United Nations puts the toll at 20,000.
In neighbouring Lebanon, Pope Benedict XVI on Friday started a weekend visit with a call for an end to arms imports to Syria. “Arms imports must stop once and for all, because without arms imports, war cannot continue,” he told reporters.
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