Russia: West incites Syrian rebels

Russia has accused the West of inciting the Syrian opposition after the defence minister and president Bashar Assad’s brother-in-law were killed in a bomb attack.

Moscow claimed that support for tshe rebels is a dead end which will lead to more bloodshed.

Russia, a long-time Syria ally, is at odds with the US and its European allies ahead of a scheduled vote on a new UN resolution that would impose sanctions on Syria’s government aimed at ending the country’s 17-month civil war.

Foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said: “Instead of calming the opposition down, some of our partners are inciting it to go on.”

Supporting the Syrian opposition “is a dead-end policy, because Assad is not leaving voluntarily”, he added.

The key stumbling block to an agreement on a Syria plan at the UN Security Council is the Western demand for a resolution threatening non-military sanctions, tied to Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter, which could eventually allow the use of force to end the conflict in Syria.

Russia is adamantly opposed to any mention of sanctions or Chapter 7. Although Western nations appear to have little appetite for force, Russia fears a repeat of the Nato campaign in Libya and opposes any prospect of international intervention.

A Western-backed resolution that would impose sanctions and allow for possible military intervention “would amount to direct support of the revolutionary movement”, Mr Lavrov said.

In Paris, French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said that the Syrian regime “is not in control of the situation”, making continued chaos more likely.

There has been a lot of diplomatic scrambling to try to get council unity, which would send a much stronger signal to Syria, with international envoy Kofi Annan in Russia for two days of high-level meetings, including talks with president Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.