Russia's main concern in Syria is the fate of the country and not that of President Bashar al-Assad, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday.
He said Moscow wanted to ensure that any solution to the conflict in Syria must prevent the opposition and government forces just swapping roles and continuing to fight indefinitely.
"We are not concerned about the fate of Assad's regime. We understand what is going on there," Putin told his annual news conference.
Earlier in the day, United Nations human rights investigators said that "the war in Syria has become divided across sectarian lines, increasingly pitting the ruling Alawite community against the majority Sunnis, with foreign fighters assisting both sides."
"As battles between government forces and anti-government armed groups approach the end of their second year, the conflict has become overly sectarian in nature," the independent investigators led by Brazilian expert Paulo Pinheiro said in their latest 10-page report.
The UN report covers the period between Sept. 28 and Dec. 16.
Meanwhile, Kommersant Russian Daily reported that according to diplomatic sources in Moscow, the abductors of the Russian and Italian engineers in Syria are demanding a € 530,000 ransom to release them.
The newspaper added that the Russian authorities are cooperating with Western countries to ensure the release of the engineers kidnapped by Syrian rebels.
On Wednesday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that "there is no prospect of an end to the 21-month conflict in Syria or the start of a political dialogue between the government and the opposition".
He told a year-end news conference that the only way to stop the violence is a political settlement, and he again urged the deeply divided U.N. Security Council which has been paralyzed since the start of the conflict to unite and "give a very strong political direction" to the opposing sides.
Security Council extended the mandate of the U.N. peacekeeping force separating Israeli and Syrian forces in the Golan Heights and warned that recent incidents across the cease-fire line have shown the potential for escalating tensions.
For his part, U.N. political chief Jeffrey Feltman told the council after the vote that "violence and military confrontations have escalated dangerously" in Syria.
"If nothing is done to change the current dynamic, and move toward a political solution, the destruction of Syria will be the likely outcome," he warned.
Feltman said the longstanding fears that the Syrian conflict would spill over and seriously threaten the stability and security of its neighbors "have intensified", noting that it has already directly affected UNDOF's [United Nations Disengagement Observer Force] area of operation.
He also added that the news about Lebanese militants participating in
Syrian battles violates the self-distancing policy the Lebanese cabinet
is maintaining to isolate Lebanon from the Syrian crisis.
Separately, the Head Cleric (Sheikh Aql) of the Druze in Sweida Hussein
Jarbou died on Thursday after a long battle with illness.
On the Ground:
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announced that the
death toll in the 21-month Syrian conflict rose to 44,000, excluding
thousands of missing and detained people as well as soldiers and
militants whose names remained undisclosed.
The observatory added that clashes continued in Syria as rebels
conducted attacks against Syrian Army checkpoints in Hamah to prevent
the regime forces from heading into the Idlib Disctrict.
Al-Qaeda on the rise in Syria
Al Qaeda has staged a comeback in
Syria, posing a dilemma for the opposition fighting to remove President Bashar
al-Assad and making the West balk at military backing for the revolt.
The rise of al Qaeda's affiliate in
Syria, al-Nusra Front, which the United States designated a terrorist organization
last week, aims to revive the Islamic Caliphate, which dates back to the
Prophet Mohammad's seventh century companions, forerunners of the large empire
that once stretched into Europe.
That prospect alarms many in Syria, from
minority Christians, Alawites and Shi'ites to traditionally conservative but
tolerant Sunni Muslims who are concerned that al-Nusra would try to impose
Taliban-style rule.
Inside Syria, the group is exploiting a
widening sectarian rift to recruit Sunnis who saw themselves as disenfranchised
by Assad's Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam that dominates
Syria's power and security structures.
It has claimed responsibility for
spectacular and deadly bombings in Damascus and Aleppo, and its fighters have
joined other rebel brigades in attacks on Assad's forces.
According to Site Intelligence group,
Nusra claimed responsibility in one day alone last month for 45 attacks in
Damascus, Deraa, Hama and Homs provinces that reportedly killed dozens,
including 60 in a single suicide bombing.
AP/LBCI/REUTERS
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