China warned on Thursday that a military strike on Syria would hurt the global
economy, in particular by causing oil prices to rise, and reiterated its calls for a political solution to the civil war.
"Military action would have a negative impact on the global economy, especially on the oil price - it will cause a hike in the oil price," Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao told a briefing on the sidelines of a Group of 20 summit.
In turn,
Pope Francis, in a letter to
Russian President Vladimir Putin for the G20 conference, urged
world leaders to "lay aside the futile pursuit of a military
solution" in Syria.
"Rather, let there be a renewed commitment to seek, with courage
and determination, a peaceful solution through dialogue and negotiation of the
parties, unanimously supported by the international community," the pope
said in the letter.
Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin endorsed plans to send a delegation to the United States to hold talks with Congress.
The initiative aimed at convincing U.S. lawmakers to vote down President Barack Obama's call to support limited military strikes in Syria in retaliation to Syria's alleged sarin gas attack on the 21st of August.
Russia is warning that a U.S. strike on Syria's atomic facilities might result in a nuclear catastrophe and is urging the U.N. to present a risk analysis of such a scenario.
The warning comes from Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Alexander Lukashevich. He said in a statement Wednesday that a strike on a miniature reactor near Damascus or other nuclear installations could contaminate the region with radioactivity, adding: "The consequences could be catastrophic."
Russia's Interfax news agency says that Moscow intends to bring up the issue at next week's 35-nation IAEA board meeting.
On a related note, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said his Syrian counterpart Walid al-Moualem will travel to Moscow for talks on Monday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
The ministry said talks will focus on "the current situation in Syria", where the United States is mulling a military strike after Washington said it had evidence that President Bashar al-Assad used chemical arms against civilians.
Iran's most powerful authority, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the United States was using a chemical attack in Syria as a pretext to interfere in the country and warned it would suffer loss from its intervention, Mehr news agency reported on Thursday.
Separately, President Barack Obama has canceled a trip to California next week so that he can stay in Washington "to work on the Syrian resolution before Congress," a White House official said on Thursday.
This as the U.S. envoy to the
United Nations said there is "no viable path forward" in the U.N.
Security Council when it comes to responding to the Aug. 21 chemical attack in
Syria that killed hundreds because Russia is holding the council hostage.
U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power
also told reporters that the United States has been briefing U.N. member states
on its intelligence about the Aug. 21 chemical weapon attack, which Washington
blames on forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The United States
says over 1,400 people, many of them children, died in that attack.
On the field:
A government official reported that
a car bomb exploded outside a research center belonging to the Ministry of
Industry in area of Soumariya near Damascus, killing four people and wounding
several others. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not
authorized to speak publicly.
In Damascus, three people were injured when several mortar shells
hit two residential neighborhoods, the state news agency SANA reported.
Meanwhile, Syrian anti-regime activists said government troops and al-Qaeda-linked rebels are fighting over a regime-held Christian village for a second day.
The director of the Britain-based Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdul-Rahman, says the fighters of al-Qaida affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra group entered the Christian village of
Maaloula overnight.
Despite heavy army presence in the village in Western Syria, Abdul-Rahman says the rebels patrolled its streets on foot and in vehicles, briefly surrounding a church and a mosque.
He says the rebels left Maaloula early Thursday morning and heavy clashes between President Bashar Assad's troops and Nusra Front fighters have raged since then in surrounding mountains.
The Observatory has been documenting conflict since it started in March 2011 and has relied on a network of activists on the ground.
REUTERS
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