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Derechos | Equipo Nizkor
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| Information | | |
Derechos | Equipo Nizkor
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06May13
John Kerry in Moscow to push for Syria solutions after Israel airstrikes
Mr Kerry, the US Secretary of State, departed for Moscow for a meeting with President Putin today after both the Russian and Chinese governments condemned the Israeli strikes.
Reports have said more than 100 Syrian soldiers were killed in the attacks, which sharply raised tensions in the region .
With oil prices spiking to $105-a-barrel and Israel deploying additional air defence batteries to its northern border, both Britain and the US have re-iterated that Russia holds the key to any diplomatic solution in the Syrian conflict.
"We certainly want to try to make another stab at it, to make another effort at it, because events on the ground have become steadily worse," said the State Department official, ahead of Mr Kerry's departure.
"The casualty figures are mounting, the rate of killing has gone up and as the Israelis strikes show, the situation is adding to instability in the region," the official said.
The meeting between Mr Kerry and President Putin represents a break in protocol, but reflects the growing urgency in diplomatic efforts to stop Syria spinning further out of control.
Diplomats hope to revive a political plan for Syria agreed in Geneva in June 2012 but never acted upon.
"This is a time to talk to the Russians to understand that from our side we remain committed, and if they are as well, then we need to think about how to work operationally to make that happen," the official said.
"I don't know if we will get an agreement or not, but we certainly think it is worth testing and trying to find some ways forward."
Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu - en route to China for a pre-planned visit - held telephone talks with Mr Putin hours after Moscow had warned that the Israeli strikes on several bases outside Damascus "sharply increased" the risk of destabilising Lebanon and Israel.
China also warned of opposition to the use of military force, with a foreign ministry spokesman urging that Syria's "sovereignty should be respected," in an oblique but clear reference to the Israeli strikes.
Although Israel has not officially claimed the strikes, Israeli officials today said they were aimed at stopping Hizbollah from acquiring modern guided missiles from Syria, and not at actively destabilizing the Assad regime.
The Israeli military also sought to play down the risk of Syrian retaliation. "There are no winds of war," Yair Golan, the general commanding Israeli forces on the Syrian and Lebanese fronts, told reporters while out jogging with troops. "Do you see tension? There is no tension. Do I look tense to you?"
Hours later, however, in a sign of the tinder-box nature of the conflict, Israeli military reported that two rockets from Syria had landed in the Israel-occupied Golan Heights - but indicated that the rockets had most likely crossed the border accidentally.
Mr Obama - who was out playing golf with three US senators today - has defended Israel's right to block "terrorist organisations like Hizbollah" from acquiring weapons, but gave no further indication whether he intends to respond to mounting pressure for the US to show international leadership over Syria.
With no public support for US 'boots on the ground' and US military chiefs saying publicly there are few good military options, administration officials have promised a decision "within weeks" over whether to provide arms to rebel groups. The imposition of a no-fly zone has also been discussed.
The difficulties facing the Obama administration were highlighted in a long paper by Jonathan Panikoff, a US department of defence analyst which warned that the departure of Bashar al-Assad - long wished for by Western powers - would be the precursor to even greater chaos.
"The true chaos will begin after the fall of the regime," was the headline of the 6,000 word analysis in the Small Wars Journal that predicted a sectarian conflict similar in nature - but far greater in extent - to the blood-letting that followed the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.
A member of the a UN commission of inquiry on Syria said that rebel fighters - and not the Assad regime, as Britain and the US have suggested - had used Sarin nerve agent, but that claim was swiftly "clarified" by both the UN and Washington who said there was no "conclusive" proof either way.
Separately, a Russian Foreign ministry spokesman said the UN chemical weapons inquiry - which has been denied access to Syria - must not become a "far-fetched and dangerous pretext" for outside intervention in Syria.
[Source: By Peter Foster, Washington, and Phoebe Greenwood in Tel Aviv, The Telegraph, London, 06May13]
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