REPORT: Assad: kidnapped Bishops are near the Turkish-Syrian border

The Arab League said on Sunday that its ministerial committee on Syria will meet Thursday to discuss ways to convene the international conference on Syria.
              
The Syrian opposition said they will meet in Turkey that same day to discuss whether to take part in an international conference on the conflict.   
                                                                                  
This as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held out the prospect of further Israeli strikes inside Syria, pledging to act to prevent advanced weapons from reaching Hezbollah and other groups.                                                                      

In public remarks at the weekly meeting of his cabinet, Netanyahu made no direct mention of those attacks, but made clear Israel was prepared to take action in the future and said it was "preparing for every scenario" in the Syrian conflict.                                       

Meanwhile, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad said in a newspaper interview that he won't step down before elections and that the United States has no right to interfere in his country's politics.                                  

In regards to the file of Bishops Boulos Yazigi of the Greek Orthodox Church and John Ibrahim of the Assyrian Orthodox Church who were kidnapped on April 22 while they were traveling outside the northern city of Aleppo, President Assad said that preliminary information shows that the 2 bishops are in a region located across the Turkish-Syrian border.                                                                              

On another note, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon held out hope that an international conference to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the Syrian civil war will be held in early June.                                                        

The U.S. and Russia have agreed to try to bring the Syrian regime and opposition to the negotiating table, but no date has been set.   
                                               
Ban Ki-moon is in Russia as part of efforts to convene the conference. The state RIA Novosti news agency quoted him saying Sunday that he is hopeful the conference can take place "very soon," possibly in early June.                                                    

Separately, an official at the Homs governor's office said two suicide bombings in the town of Deir Balbaa just outside of Homs killed at least three people and wounded 15 others. The official declined to be identified because he is not allowed to make public comments.                                                                   

Another pair of bombings struck near a factory on a different Homs highway, killing four people and wounding 13, the state news agency reported.     
                              
More than 70,000 people have been killed and several million displaced since the uprising against Assad erupted in March 2011 and escalated into a civil war. The fighting has also spilled over into neighboring states, including Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon and Israel, all of which are anxious about the ripple effect of Syria's conflict on their own nations.                          


REUTERS/LBCI

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