U.N-Arab envoy Kofi Annan's spokesman
earlier said that Syria has formally responded to
the six-point peace plan put forward by Kofi Annan and backed by world powers.
"The Syrian Government has formally
responded to the Joint Special Envoy for Syria, Kofi Annan's six-point plan, as
endorsed by the UN Security Council. Mr. Annan is studying it and will respond
very shortly," his spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said in a statement giving no
further details.
E
arlier on Monday, Annan told journalists
in Moscow he could not set a deadline for a resolution of the Syrian crisis
after a year of bloodshed but it could not drag on indefinitely. “The Syrian
parties cannot resist the wind of change”, he said.
Meanwhile, SANA reported that the Syrian
National Council “felt” that Assad will postpone the
legislative elections scheduled for May 7th to another date.
The Norwegian Foreign Ministry earlier said it has decided to close down its embassy in Damascus due to security concerns.
Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere on Monday said Norway has closed the embassy until further notice, but that a Norwegian diplomat will continue to work in Syria through the Danish embassy.
Meanwhile, Syrian troops shelled rebel-held neighborhoods in Homs on Monday, the latest barrage in a bombardment that has lasted several days and appeared to be the groundwork for an assault to push the fighters out of the country's third largest city.
Also Monday, Turkey closed its embassy in Damascus and recalled its ambassador as relations between the former allies continue to deteriorate.
The outlawed Muslim Brotherhood meanwhile announced that if President Bashar Assad were overthrown it would work for a "modern" democratic state. The Brotherhood statement was an overture by one of the largest organizations representing the country's Sunni Arab majority, which also dominates the Syrian opposition, toward placating Syrian minorities who have until now gravitated towards the regime.
The Turkish embassy closure comes amid rising diplomatic pressure on Assad. Ankara, once close to Damascus, is now one of Syria's most vocal critics.
Activities at the embassy in the Syrian capital are being "temporarily suspended," but Turkey's consulate in Aleppo will remain operational, a brief statement posted on the embassy's website said Sunday night.
The embassy is being closed because of the poor security situation in Syria, a ministry official said on condition of anonymity in line with ministry regulations. The Turkish ambassador and other diplomats will be returning to Turkey, he said.
Other countries including the U.S., France, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have also closed embassies. This and other forms of diplomatic pressure have left Damascus isolated, but have so far failed to stop the year-old Syria crisis, in which more than 8,000 people have been killed, according to the U.N.
The U.S., Europe, Turkey and many Arab states have called on President Bashar Assad to stand down, but Russia and China have protected Syria from condemnation by the United Nations Security Council. Syria is Moscow's last remaining ally in the Middle East and is a major customer for Russia's arms industry, but Russia has recently shown impatience with Assad.
In Damascus, the state-run news agency, SANA, said Syrian troops foiled an attempt by an "armed terrorist group" to infiltrate the country from Turkey. The troops killed and wounded some of them and seized their weapons, SANA said.
It said Turkish medical teams transferred the killed and the wounded into Turkey.
Assad's forces meanwhile kept up a series of offensives that over the past two months have seen the recapture of several rebel strongholds, although centers of resistance remain.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees have been reporting shelling in Homs for days as Assad's forces appear to be preparing for an operation to retake rebel-held neighborhoods in Syria's third largest city. The Observatory said that mortars were fired on the central neighborhood of Warsheh.
The LCC said 19 people were killed in Syria Monday, nine of them in Homs. The Observatory said 10 people were killed Monday, including the five in the Homs shelling.
The Observatory also said that the body of activist Khalaf Mohammed al-Shab was found Sunday night hours after he was abducted near the predominantly Kurdish northeastern town of Derbasiyeh. Al-Shab was a nephew of late Kurdish leader Mashaal Tamo who was assassinated in October.
AP/Reuters/LBCI