Syrian President Bashar
Assad met with U.N. peace envoy in Damascus on Tuesday in an attempt to salvage
a U.N.-brokered peace plan after more than 100 civilians were massacred on
Friday in the town of Houla. Assad told Annan that his plan’s success depends
on putting an end to terrorist acts and arms smuggling and that “terrorist
groups” have stepped up killing, kidnapping across Syria.
Annan conveyed to Syrian
President Assad International Community’s grave concern about violence,
killings in Houla. Annan added that his six-point plan required “bold steps” to
halt violence and release detainees.
Syria's
international isolation deepened Tuesday in response to the killings, as
France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain, Canada, Australia, the U.S. and Bulgaria expelled
Syrian diplomats.
French
President Francois Hollande said Paris was expelling the Syrian ambassador and
that France will host a meeting in early July of the so-called Friends of
Syria, a group of nations seeking to resolve the crisis.
Hollande added that military intervention in Syria is not to be
ruled out if approved by the U.N. Security Council.
Britain
expelled three diplomats; Australia kicked out two.
Austria
said it cannot expel its Syrian ambassador because he is also the
representative to U.N. organizations in Geneva. But Foreign Ministry spokesman
Nikolaus Lutterotti said the ambassador would be summoned so officials could
protest the Houla killings.
The
U.S. State Department is expelling Syria's charge d'affaires in Washington
following a wave of deadly attacks on civilians in Syria over the weekend, a
U.S. official said.
The official, who spoke on condition
of anonymity, said the Syrian diplomat would be given 72 hours to depart the
country. Syria's longtime ambassador to Washington, Imad Moustapha, was
recalled to Damascus late last year and a formal replacement had not been
named.
Bulgaria is expelling Syria's charge d'affaires as part of an international response to the massacre of civilians in the Syrian village of Houla, its Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.
Two other diplomats at the Syrian embassy will also be expelled and the European Union member also decided to temporarily close its mission in Damascus and call back its diplomats, the ministry said.
The Swiss government declared the Syrian ambassador an unwelcome person
in Switzerland, joining other Western countries in expelling Syrian
diplomats in response to a massacre in the town of Houla.
The
Federal Department of Foreign Affairs said it had informed the Syrian
Foreign Ministry of its decision to declare Lamia Chakkour, who resides
in Paris from where she represents both France and Switzerland, a
persona non-grata.
The
Syrian National Council welcomed the step taken by Western countries to expel Syrian
diplomats, calling on the international community to cut off all diplomatic
relations with the Syrian regime and alienate all its representatives. He also
called for an international resolution that would allow the use of force “to
prevent genocide”.
The White House announced that it does
not believe military intervention in Syria is right course of action at this
time, warning that it could lead to more carnage.
Washington hoped that the Houla
massacre could be a “turning point” that would lead Russia to stop hesitating
about taking a harsher stance on President Bashar Assad.
As
for Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, he accused unnamed countries of
trying to use the Houla killings "as a pretext for taking military
measures."
He
said such nations sought to impede Annan's plan because it seeks dialogue
between Syrians, not regime change.
Lavrov, speaking with U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan by phone on Tuesday, urged Syria's government and its opponents to stop violence and repeated a call for an investigation into the killings in the town of Houla.
Lavrov "expressed deep alarm in connection with the tragedy in Houla and underscored that all Syrian sides should reject violence without delay with the aim of preventing such incidents in the future," the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
The
U.N. said that at least 108 people, including 34 women and 49 children, were
killed in an attack that began on Friday and continued through the night on
Houla, a group of poor farming villages northwest of the central Syrian city of
Homs.
"What is very clear is this was an absolutely abominable
event that took place in Houla, and at least a substantial part of it was
summary executions of civilians, women and children," said Rupert
Colville, spokesman for the U.N. High commissioner for Human Rights. "At
this point, it looks like entire families were shot in their houses."
In the field, The Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights announced that 16 people were killed on Tuesday in
fierce clashes between the Syrian regime’s forces and dissident groups and in
sporadic violence acts across Syria.