Russia, China agree on Security Council statementUNITED NATIONS – The UN Security Council Thursday called on Syria to “urgently” move to keep an April 10 deadline to withdraw troops and weapons from protest cities. The 15-nation council, including Russia and China, agreed on a statement putting new pressure on President Bashar Al-Assad to end his offensive on protesters and opposition groups which the UN says has left at least 9,000 dead in the past year. The Council gave strong new backing to a peace plan by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan who says Syria has agreed an April 10 deadline to withdraw its troops and heavy weapons from main cities. If this is carried out Annan will then give the government and opposition groups 48 hours to end all hostilities. The Security Council statement “calls upon the Syrian government to implement urgently and visibly its commitments” made to Annan to take the steps toward a cessation of hostilities. It calls for Syria to start a two-hour daily pause in hostilities and to allow immediate humanitarian access. The Council said that depending on Annan's reports on what Assad has carried out, it will “consider further steps as appropriate.” The statement was softened at Russia's demand however, diplomats involved in the talks said. Russia and China have vetoed two previous full resolutions on Syria. An initial proposal by western countries that the council “demands” that Syria pull back its troops and heavy weapons was changed to “calls” and “verifiably” was changed to “visibly.” Meanwhile, a team led by a Norwegian major general arrived in Damascus Thursday to negotiate the possible deployment of a UN team that would monitor a ceasefire agreement between government troops and rebel forces, a spokesman for the UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan said. Ahmad Fawzi said the UN is already asking member nations to contribute about 200 to 250 soldiers who would monitor a UN-supervised ceasefire, which should come into effect on April 12. Annan has asked the Norwegian major general, Robert Mood, to “begin discussing with the Syrian authorities the modalities of the eventual deployment of this UN supervision and monitoring mission,” Fawzi said. Fawzi, a spokesman for Annan, said the Syrian government should remove its troops and heavy weapons from populated areas and “begin the pullback of military concentrations in and around population centers” by April 10, and then both sides will have 48 hours to stop fighting. “The clock starts ticking on the 10th for both sides to cease all forms of violence,” Fawzi said. Fawzi's comments were an attempt to clarify the sequence of events envisaged by Annan's peace plan aimed at bringing an end to an uprising that has left thousands of people dead. France's Foreign Minister Alain Juppe says he's not optimistic about a peace plan for Syria and is ready to push for stronger UN action if the April 12 deadline for a ceasefire is not met. Juppe said Thursday he thinks Assad “is deceiving us” when he promises to abide by the peace plan. Syria, meanwhile, has told UN officials that it is withdrawing troops from the southern province of Daraa, the northwestern province of Idlib and mountain resort town of Zabadani, north of Damascus, Fawzi said. But activists in Syria said Syrian troops are attacking the Damascus suburb of Douma, in what they described as one of the most violent campaigns there since the year-old uprising began. The attack on the suburb of Douma and other offensives around the country bolster the opposition's claim that President Bashar Assad is only intensifying violence in the days before a deadline.
