International peace mediator Kofi Annan will visit Syria "soon", his spokesman Ahmad Fawzi told Reuters on Friday, in what would be his first visit since he presented his peace plan to Syria's government in early March.
Fawzi declined to give details or specify the date, citing security reasons. Fawzi has repeatedly said that Annan, whose 6 week old ceasefire plan has failed to stop the violence in Syria, would travel to the country when the time was right.
Meanwhile, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Friday that international envoy Kofi Annan's peace plan is the only option right now for ending the violence in Syria.
Ban said in an interview Thursday with CNN's Christiane Amanpour that "at this time, we don't have any plan B."
The former U.N. secretary-general's plan calls for a complete cessation of violence but Ban said "unfortunately, this has not been implemented."
He said the deployment of U.N. observers to Syria has had "some dampening effect" but the violence hasn't stopped. Ban said this requires "strong political will" by Syrian President Bashar Assad and full cooperation by opposition forces.
Ban said he spoke Wednesday to Annan, who said he will be going to Syria soon but no date has been fixed.
In his concluding remarks
Ban warned of the dissemination of the Syrian crisis into Lebanon adding that
the repercussions would be dire.
Separately, activists reported that Syrian forces are shelling opposition strongholds as thousands gather across the country in weekly anti-government protests.
Earlier in the day, the
Syrian opposition called for protesting on Friday under the slogan of “Damascus,
here we come”, in an attempt to boost the anti-Assad revolution in the capital
and its surroundings.
Meanwhile, activists reported continued clashes
despite UN observers’ field trips, adding that one civilian was killed in Hama
in arbitrary shooting while four others were killed in Rif Hama.
SANA also reported that “armed groups assassinated one
officer and his son as well as 5 government forces and 4 people in Rif Damascus”,
adding that “a mother and her 4 children were killed in Rif Hama after they
were kidnapped by a terrorist group. Terrorists’ hotbeds were also uncovered in
Idlib, Rif Damascus and Homs.”
Friday's violence was reported by the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of activists on the ground, and by the opposition Local Coordination Committees.
The groups said government forces shelled the Qusour and Jobar neighborhoods in Homs province. Also Friday, there were protests in Damascus, Aleppo and the southern Daraa province.
REUTERS/LBCI/AP