Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov said on Wednesday that there could be no peaceful resolution of the
conflict in Syria as long as opponents of President Bashar al-Assad refuse to
negotiate with his government and demand his exit from power as a precondition
for peace talks.
"Everything runs up against
the opposition members' obsession with the idea of the overthrow of the Assad
regime. As long as this irreconcilable position remains in force, nothing good
will happen, armed action will continue, people will die," Lavrov told an
annual news conference.
After Russia brought 77 people
fleeing the violence back to their homeland via Lebanon, Lavrov said Russia is
not planning a mass evacuation of its citizens from Syria because the situation
there does not require it.
"We have plans (in place),
as we have plans for any country, in case of an escalation of the internal
situation ... But there is no talk of implementing them. For now the assessment
of our embassy and respective departments here ... does not require the
implementation of the existing plans," Lavrov said.
In a related
context, Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry said that 77 Russian nationals,
mostly women and children, have been evacuated from Syria in light of the deteriorating
security situation. “28 Russians were evacuated on board a Yak-42 plane,
followed by 49 others on board an Il-76,” the Ministry announced.
“The two
planes arrived to Moscow’s Domodedovo International
Airport where they were welcomed by a medical team, psychologists and officials
from the Ministry of Emigration,” the ministry added.
On another note, over 6,000 Syrian refugees arrived
in Jordan in the past 24 hours, mainly women, children and elderly, according
to a source from the General Command of the Jordanian Armed Forces.
The Jordanian official news agency
quoted a well-informed source as saying that 6,134 Syrian refugees, mostly
women, children and elderly, have crossed the Syrian border on Tuesday heading
towards the Kingdom. “These refugees included many injured,” the source said.
Meanwhile, the United Nations' food agency said on Wednesday that the ongoing conflict in Syria has left its agricultural sector in tatters, causing wheat and barley output to slump by half and wreaking massive destruction on farm infrastructure
.
Following a U.N. assessment mission in Syria from Jan. 18-22, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said wheat and barley output had dropped to 2 million tonnes in 2012, halving from 4-4.5 million tonnes in normal years.
The mission, coordinated with both the Syrian government and the opposition, also found the conflict was causing major destruction of infrastructure and irrigation systems and farmers were struggling to fully harvest crops due to insecurity and lack of fuel.
On the field
Syrian activists say a government rocket attack has killed six members of a single family in the north of the country, where rebels fighting the regime of President Bashar Assad control wide swaths of territory.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees say that the rocket landed in the village of Abu Taltal in Aleppo province after midnight Wednesday. The groups frequently report government bombardment of rebel-dominated regions.
The Observatory said a father, mother and four children whose ages raged between two and 11 were killed. The LCC said the family name was Hazrouni.
REUTERS/LBCI/AP