Obama and Erdogan discuss providing medical supplies to Syrian opposition

Russia offered "full support" for peace envoy Kofi Annan's efforts to end fighting in Syria on Sunday but said his mission would need more time as forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad attacked Homs and other rebel strongholds.            

Moscow also reiterated its stance that foreign support for the Syrian opposition was the main obstacle to peace, while U.S. President Barack Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan discussed how to get non-lethal aid to the opposition.             

A U.S.-based human rights group accused Assad's forces on Sunday of using human shields in their efforts to crush the rebellion, which began more than a year ago.            

"Syrian government forces have endangered local residents by forcing them to march in front of the army during recent arrest operations, troop movements, and attacks on towns and villages in northern Syria," Human Rights Watch said, quoting residents from Syria's northwestern province of Idlib.         

The Syrian state news agency SANA said six "terrorists" had been killed on during dawn raid on a hideout in Deraa.            

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 27 were killed around Syria on Sunday, 15 of them civilians, during heavy shelling in the central city of Homs and northwestern province of Idlib.             

In the eastern city of Deir al-Zor, Syrian troops conducted house-to-house raids in search of dissidents, SOHR said.         

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who will join Obama for a nuclear security summit in South Korea on Monday, told U.N.-Arab League Syria envoy Kofi Annan in Moscow he appreciated his efforts to end the violence.             

"This may be the last chance for Syria to avoid a long-lasting and bloody civil war. Therefore we will offer you our full support at any level and in various ways in those areas, of course, in which Russia is capable of providing support."          

"Syria has an opportunity today to work with me and this mediation process to put an end to the conflict, to the fighting, allow access to those in need of humanitarian assistance as well as embark on a political process that will lead to a peaceful settlement," Annan said after the talks.         

Largely to ensure Russian support, the statement included no firm deadline for implementation of its demands, potentially allowing Assad to play for time. It also included no direct call for Assad to cede power, which Russia would also have opposed.           

In the Korean capital Seoul, Obama and Erdogan discussed providing medical supplies and communications support to the Syrian opposition but there was no talk of providing lethal aid for rebel forces.           

"We worked on a common agenda in terms of how we can support both humanitarian efforts ... (and) the efforts of Kofi Annan to bring about much needed change (in Syria)," Obama said after his meeting with Erdogan, a sharp critic of Assad.            

New York-based Human Rights Watch published videos, obtained from opposition activists, in which people in civilian clothes walk in front of several armed soldiers and infantry fighting vehicles. Activists say the army had compelled the men to walk in front to protect the soldiers.             

The statement said that residents reported government forces placing children on tanks and inside security buses.           

Reuters