Annan urges end to Syria violence, political talks

Kofi Annan, the U.N.-Arab League special envoy on Syria, said on Thursday he would urge President Bashar al-Assad and his foes to stop fighting and seek a political solution to end a year of conflict.
   
The turmoil has prompted Syria's deputy oil minister to change sides in the first defection by a senior civilian official since the start of a popular uprising against Assad.
   
In another sign of mounting pressure on Syria, the national currency fell as low as 100 pounds to the dollar from about 47 a year ago. Dealers in Damascus said the pound plunged about 13 percent in the last 24 hours on fears of U.S. military action.
  
"As I move to Syria, we will do whatever we can to urge and press for a cessation of hostilities and end to the killing and violence," Annan, due in Damascus on Saturday, said in Cairo.
   
"But of course, ultimately the solution lies in a political settlement," the former U.N. secretary-general said before talks with Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby.
   
"We will be urging the government and a broad spectrum of Syrian opposition to come together to work with us to find a solution that will respect the aspirations of the Syrian people."
   
Turkish President Abdullah Gul said on Thursday his country was opposed to any force from outside the region intervening in Syria, and warned that no regime could survive by using violence against its people.

Tunisian President Moncef al-Marzouki, in a joint news conference with Gul at the presidential palace, said Tunisia was also against non-Arab intervention in Syria but would be willing to participate in any Arab peacekeeping force sent there.
   
"Turkey is against the intervention by any force which is from outside the region," Gul told a press conference in Tunis. "Such an intervention could be subject to exploitation," he said, without elaborating.
   
U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said on Thursday she was "devastated" by what she saw in Syria's battered district of Baba Amr in Homs and is concerned to know what happened to residents there.
   
"I was devastated by what I saw in Baba Amr yesterday," Amos told Reuters after leaving a meeting with ministers in Damascus.
   
"The devastation there is significant, that part of Homs is completely destroyed and I am concerned to know what has happened to the people who live in that part of the city."

China, one of Assad's few friends abroad, said its envoy had given his Syrian hosts a similar message and had prodded them to let relief agencies into strife-hit areas - also the focus of a mission by U.N. aid chief Valerie Amos to Syria.
   
Syria on Wednesday "welcomed" China's initiative, stressing Beijing's opposition to foreign interference in its affairs.
   
China is trying to counter Western and Arab charges that it, along with Russia, has colluded in Assad's repression of dissent by twice vetoing U.N. resolutions criticising him.
   
Burhan Ghalioun, Paris-based leader of the opposition Syrian National Council, welcomed Hussameldin's action, but said the SNC was not in contact with him. "People from the government must continue to join the opposition," he told Reuters.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Wednesday defended U.S. caution, especially in the absence of international consensus on Syria, but said the Pentagon was reviewing options.
   
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said aid delays were unacceptable and urged Syria to respect a pledge last November to withdraw troops, free prisoners and allow peaceful protests.
   
"The regime's refusal to allow humanitarian workers to help feed the hungry, tend to the injured, bury the dead, marks a new low," she said, adding that she planned to meet her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Monday at the United Nations.
   
Russia's U.N. envoy accused Libya's new rulers of training and arming Syrian rebels. "This is completely unacceptable ... This activity is undermining stability in the Middle East," said Vitaly Churkin.
   
Reuters