EU-Russia Summit back Annan peace plan for Syria
The European Union and Russia Monday acknowledged "diverging assessments" on the Syrian crisis but agreed that UN envoy Kofi Annan's faltering six-point plan was the best chance to bring peace to the troubled country.
EU co-chief Herman Van Rompuy, addressing a news conference after talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg, on Monday said: "The European Union and Russia might have some diverging assessments, but we fully agree that the Annan plan as a whole provides the best opportunity to break the cycle of violence in Syria."
The EU-Russia Summit failed to come to an agreement on the sources of violence in Syria and the role of President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
Putin made no statement on Syria at the news conference.
China, which along with Russia vetoed two UN Security Council resolutions condemning the Syrian regime, has warned against foreign action and said abandoning the Kofi Annan plan could plunge the country "into the abyss of full-scale war."
Meanwhile, armed rebels and government forces clashed in northwest Syria, a day after President Assad vowed to crush the uprising.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 100 soldiers had died in the suburbs of Damascus and Idlib province over the weekend in clashes with rebels.
The Observatory said it had confirmed the names of 80 dead soldiers with local medics.
Meanwhile, President Assad, in his first public comment on the massacre at Houla, in which 108 people were killed on 25 May, said that even "monsters" would not have carried out such an act.
Source: Europe News.Net
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