Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said on Tuesday the scale of violence used by Syria's government when fighting rebels meant a negotiated settlement of the country's crisis was unthinkable.
"Damascus... which has been a city for the longest period of time, is carpet bombed. How can you conceive of the possibility of a negotiated settlement with somebody who does that to his own country, to his own history, to his own people? It is inconceivable to us," Prince Saud al-Faisal told a news conference.
He was speaking after an Arab summit focusing on economic development, which was not attended by Syria. The world's top oil exporter has led Arab efforts to isolate the government of President Bashar al-Assad, which is allied to Saudi Arabia's main regional rival Iran.
Earlier, the United Nations reported that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
and UN-Arab League mediator Lakhdar Brahimi are deeply disturbed by the
continued bloodshed in Syria, where more than 60,000 people have been killed in
22 months of civil war, .
"Both expressed deep
disappointment and anguish at the appalling levels of killing and destruction
carried out by both the Government and the opposition, fueled by outside powers
providing weaponry to both sides," the UN press office said.
"They also expressed their
consternation about the lack of a unified international posture that could lead
to a transition as agreed at Geneva last June and put an end to the desperate
suffering of the Syrian people," it said in a statement.
Ban and Brahimi met in New York
to discuss Syria. Brahimi has been trying to help Russia and the United States
break their deadlock on Syria which has prevented the U.N. Security Council
from taking any meaningful action on the conflict.
Separately, a Jordanian official
source told AFP that almost 6 thousand refugees arrived in the past 24 hours to
Jordan.
The source added that most
refugees are children, and women.
On the ground, Syrian activists said fighting
between government forces and rebels is raging in the suburbs of Damascus and
elsewhere in the country, as a group of Russian citizens prepares to be
evacuated to escape the 22-month civil war.
The Britain-based Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights said the clashes Tuesday are concentrated near the
capital, including along the road linking it to the international airport.
Due in part to the fighting,
the Russians will travel overland to Lebanon to board airplanes back to their
homeland from Beirut.
On the other hand, at least 56 people have been
killed in a week of fighting in northeast Syria between anti-government rebels
and members of the long-oppressed Kurdish minority who have seized on the civil
war to try to secure self-rule, activists said on Tuesday.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights, which collates reports on Syria's violence from local activists,
said on Tuesday that the anti-Damascus rebels were using tanks and mortars on
Tuesday against Kurdish forces.
With Arab rebels entangling government
forces to the west and south, the Kurds, who make up around 10 percent of the
population, have exploited the vacuum to set up the Kurdish schools and
cultural centers long denied them under Baath party rule, as well as police and
armed militias.
REUTERS/LBCI