Washington Hints It May Arm Syrian Opposition

Moscow and Beirut boycott Friends of Syria meeting. Beijing is hesitant, Paris wants aid plan while Berlin announces European sanctions.

The U.S. Department of State said yesterday that a political solution is the best way to resolve the Syrian crisis, although if President Bashar al-Assad refuses, it may have to consider “additional measures.” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland was asked about the current U.S. position on providing military assistance to the Syrian opposition. “We don’t believe that it makes sense to contribute now to the further militarization of Syria. What we don’t want to see is the spiral of violence increase,” she said. “That said … if we can’t get Assad to yield to the pressure that we are all bringing to bear, we may have to consider additional measures.”

Refusing to give up its public support for Assad, Russia announced it will boycott the upcoming Friends of Syria meeting in Tunis on Friday. The opposition will be in attendance. Russia cited the refusal to invite the Damascus government to the conference, which could push for regime change.

Lebanese foreign minister Adnan Mansour also refused to attend, saying that Lebanon will pursue a policy to distance itself from events in Syria, and he reiterated his position on resolutions that called for economic and diplomatic ties to be severed earlier this February.

The Chinese appeared hesitant in their stance after a Foreign Ministry spokesman said that Beijing has yet to make its mind up on whether nor not to accept the invitation to take part in the crisis talks.

On her part, U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton pledged Monday night to use every possible means of diplomacy to convince Russia and China to change their stances on Syria, saying that they had made a mistake in supporting Bashar al-Assad, who has cracked down on anti-regime protests in the last 11 months with violent repression.

France expressed its hope that the Friends of Syria conference will set out practical steps for getting urgent humanitarian aid to victims of regime oppression and reiterated on Tuesday the pressing need for aid organizations to be allowed to reach victims as quickly as possible. The German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle said that the European Union will likely impose new sanctions on the Assad government next week.

In a statement on the upcoming Friends of Syria conference, Russia said the meeting was being held “for the purpose of supporting one side against another in an internal conflict” and that it “cannot accept the offer to attend this meeting.” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said the meeting will not help in building national dialogue among Syrians to deal with their internal crisis.

Russia enraged the West after refusing to condemn the Assad regime and for insisting that both government and opposition forces are responsible for the ongoing violence. Tunisian foreign minister Rafik Abdesselam said the meeting will include representatives from the Syrian National Council and other opposition groups alongside Arab and Western diplomats. The conference, which was suggested by Paris and Washington, will seek to reach a “consensus and a united message” among the attendees, the Tunisian Foreign Ministry said.

Moscow is suspicious of the conference’s intentions after a similar coalition was formed for providing air support for the Libyan opposition in their battles against troops loyal to former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. It fears that the conference aims to impose harsh new sanctions on Syria and supply the opposition with arms so that it is “able to directly attack the regime”.

Russian UN representative Vitaly Churkin told Russian state television that if such a scenario were imposed, it would inevitably result in more and more bloodletting, a civil war and possibly even the breakup of Syria, which would have “dire consequences” for the region. He added that not having representative from the Syrian regime present at the meeting in Tunis will simply make it a platform for like-minded parties and will have little effect on the situation on the ground.

In a statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that various opposition groups had been invited to Tunis, even though representatives of the Syrian government had received no such invitation. This means that the interests of the majority of Syrians, who support the government, will not be represented. Russia issued another invite to Europe, the United States and the Arab world to work together and without any preconditions on starting dialogue between the opposition and the government to help both sides agree on reforms. Lukashevich said that as soon as reforms are enacted and the violence stops, it will be possible to send in humanitarian aid. He suggested that members of the UN Security Council send a special envoy to Syria to help coordinate security issues and the delivery of humanitarian assistance.

Analysts say that Russia is becoming more confident in its position towards Syria amid increasing fears in the West that al-Qaeda and other armed extremist groups could infiltrate Syrian opposition groups. Fyodor Lukyanov, editor-in-chief of the Russia in Global Affairs magazine, believes that despite the West’s action of continuing to say the same thing, there are signs it is having doubts, and that “there’s a lot of fear that ousting al-Assad will lead to chaos”. He added that some officials in Moscow think the West is using its criticism of Russia “as a pretext” for avoiding military intervention, which does have full backing in many Western states.

China also rejected the invitation to the event. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Li acknowledged that Beijing had received an invitation but stated that China is “currently researching the function, mechanism and other aspects of the meeting." Beijing dispatched envoys to the region in the hope of reaching a diplomatic settlement. Among them is Vice Foreign Minister Zhai Jun, who met with Al-Assad last Saturday, and who supported his plan for a referendum and multi-party elections.

China has repeated on a number of occasions that it does not support any use of or the threat of force or intervention in Syria, and it has called on all sides to halt the violence and begin talks.