Tag Archives: security
G20 fails to heal rift on Syria at Russia talks
G20 fails to heal rift on Syria at Russia talks (AFP) / 6 September 2013 World leaders at the G20 summit on Friday failed to bridge their bitter divisions over US plans for military action against the Syrian regime, as Washington slammed Moscow for holding the UN Security Council ‘hostage’ over the crisis. Despite not being on the original agenda of the summit hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin outside Saint Petersburg, the leaders discussed the Syria crisis into the early hours of the morning over dinner amid the splendour of a former imperial palace. US President Barack Obama (L) meets with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (R) at the G20 Summit in St. Petersburg on September 5, 2013.- Reuters Putin has emerged as one of the most implacable critics of military intervention against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad over an alleged chemical weapons attack on August 21, saying any such move without UN blessing would be an aggression. There was no breakthrough at the dinner as leaders, including US President Barack Obama , presented their positions on the Syria crisis which only confirmed the extent of global divisions on the issue, participants said. “The differences of opinions of the leaders were confirmed during the dinner,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies. British Prime Minister David Cameron (C) chairs a meeting on the humanitarian situation in Syria at the G20 summit in St Petersburg on September 6, 2013. – Reuters “Some states were defending the view that rushed measures should be taken, overlooking legitimate international institutions. Other states appealed not to devalue international law and not to forget that only the UN Security Council has the right to decide on using force,” he added. A high-ranking source close to the talks said there was a disappointing lack of ambition at the dinner on the Syria issue, noting that Putin as host was keen not to aggravate tensions further. But a French diplomatic source said the objective of the dinner “was an exchange between the top world leaders and not to come to an agreement”. The dinner went on into the small hours of the morning and even after a late-night opera show, Putin and British Prime Minister David Cameron had a meeting to discuss the Syria situation, the Kremlin said. UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Friday also warned that military strikes could spark further sectarian violence in the country which he said is suffering from a humanitarian crisis “unprecedented” in recent history. “I must warn that ill-considered military action could cause serious and tragic consequences, and with an increased threat of further sectarian violence,” Ban said. The Syria crisis and prospect of military intervention has overshadowed the official agenda of the summit of leaders of the world’s top economies and emerging markets to stimulate growth and battle tax avoidance. It was not immediately clear if the leaders would have another chance to discuss Syria on the summit’s second day or if the main session would focus on purely economic issues. Several Western states share Putin’s opposition to military action and after the British parliament voted against strikes, France is the only power to have vowed it will join American intervention. Obama is seeking backing from Congress for military action, putting back the timetable for strikes which had been anticipated even before the two day-summit got underway on Thursday. The US president held a bilateral meeting on Friday morning with President Xi Jinping of China, who like Russia vehemently opposes military action against Syria. Even as the leaders were setting out their arguments at the dinner, the US ambassador to the United Nations in New York launched a lacerating attack on Russia for holding the Security Council “hostage” over its backing of Assad. “Even in the wake of the flagrant shattering of the international norm against chemical weapons use, Russia continues to hold the council hostage and shirk its international responsibilities,” Samantha Power told reporters. Amid a new low in US-Russia tensions, no bilateral meeting as been scheduled between Putin and Obama although officials have left the door open for some informal contact. According to US intelligence, more than 1,400 people living in rebel-held suburbs of Damascus were killed in the August 21 chemical weapons attack, which involved the use of sarin nerve gas. The US says the Assad regime was responsible, a claim not accepted by Russia. Cameron told BBC TV from the G20 summit that Britain had further evidence of the use of chemical weapons in the attack in samples its experts had tested. With the clock ticking down to strikes, Russia said Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid Muallem would travel to Moscow for talks on Monday. The two-and-a-half year conflict between Assad and rebels, which began as a popular uprising, has left more than 100,000 people dead. About a third of Syria’s pre-war 20.8 million population has fled abroad or have been forced from their homes, according to the UN refugee agency. Continue reading
US says Russia holding UN Council ‘hostage’ on Syria
US says Russia holding UN Council ‘hostage’ on Syria (AFP) / 6 September 2013 The United States on Thursday accused Russia of holding the UN Security Council “hostage” over the Syria chemical weapons crisis. With the White House pushing Congress to approve military strikes on Syria, US ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said she could see no way to seek Security Council approval for action against President Bashar Al Assad because of Russia’s blocking. Amid mounting tensions between Washington and Moscow, Power said Russia’s protection of Assad has put the whole Security Council system of handling international crises under strain. “Even in the wake of the flagrant shattering of the international norm against chemical weapons use, Russia continues to hold the council hostage and shirk its international responsibilities,” Power told reporters as Russia hosted US President Barack Obama at the Group of 20 summit. Power, who took over as US envoy to the United Nations one month ago, said the UN Security Council system, in which the five permanent members — Russia, the United States, China, France and Britain — can veto any resolution, had failed the Syrian people. “Instead the system has protected the prerogatives of Russia — the patron of a regime that has brazenly staged the world’s largest chemical weapons attack in a quarter century,” Power said. The envoy spoke after US officials briefed other UN members on evidence that Assad’s forces carried out an attack using banned poison sarin gas near Damascus on August 21. She said the evidence “overwhelmingly” points to an attack by Assad forces. The United States says more than 1,400 people died in the attack, which the Assad government, supported by Russia, has blamed on Syrian rebels. Since an uprising against Assad erupted in March 2011, Russia and China have vetoed three western-proposed resolutions that would have aimed to increase pressure on Assad, without imposing sanctions. The Russian president said this week he would be ready to consider Security Council action if he could be convinced that Assad forces staged the August 21 attack. Power said she did not believe Putin would budge however. “We have seen nothing in President Putin’s comments that suggest that there is an available path forward at the Security Council,” the US envoy said. The Obama administration is seeking approval from lawmakers for military strikes, which could be joined by France. Power’s comments reinforced Obama’s stance that he was ready to order strikes without UN approval. And she stressed US exasperation at the repeated blocking of Security Council resolutions and statements. The resolutions had been proposed hoping that “our common security and our common humanity might prevail,” she said. “Unfortunately, for the past two and half years the system devised in 1945 precisely to deal with threats of this nature did not work as it was supposed to. It has not protected peace and security for the hundreds of Syrian children who were gassed to death on August 21. It is not protecting the stability of the region.” She added: “To stand back would be to endanger not only international peace and security, not only US national security, but, we also believe, the very international system that we have been working these decades to build.” Continue reading
Top US Republicans back Syria strike
Obama wins key backing for military action in Syria (Reuters) / 4 September 2013 US President Barack Obama won the backing of two top Republicans in Congress in his call for limited US strikes on Syria to punish President Bashar Al Assad for his suspected use of chemical weapons against civilians. Speaking after the United Nations said 2 million Syrians had fled a conflict that posed the greatest threat to world peace since the Vietnam war, Obama said the United States also has a broader plan to help rebels defeat Assad’s forces. In remarks that appeared to question the legality of US plans to strike Syria without UN backing, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the use of force is only legal when it is in self-defence or with UN Security Council authorisation. He said that if UN inspectors confirm the use of chemical weapons in Syria, the Security Council, which has long been deadlocked on the 2-1/2-year Syrian civil war, should overcome its differences and take action. Having startled friends and foes alike in the Middle East by delaying a punitive attack on Assad until Congress reconvenes and agrees, Obama met congressional leaders at the White House on Tuesday to urge a prompt decision and assure them it did not mean another long war like Iraq or Afghanistan. John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the US House of Representatives, and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor both pledged their support for military action after the meeting. Votes are expected to be held in the US Senate and House next week, with the Republican-led House presenting the tougher challenge for Obama. The Republican House leadership has indicated the votes will be “conscience votes,” meaning they will not seek to influence members’ votes on party lines. All the same, it would have been a big blow to Obama if he had not secured the backing of the top two Republicans. “I believe that my colleagues should support this call for action,” Boehner told reporters. The president said strikes aimed at punishing the use of chemical weapons would hurt Assad’s forces while other US action would bolster his opponents – though the White House has insisted it is not seeking “regime change.” “What we are envisioning is something limited. It is something proportional. It will degrade Assad’s capabilities,” Obama said. “At the same time we have a broader strategy that will allow us to upgrade the capabilities of the opposition.” Assad denies deploying poison gas that killed hundreds of civilians last month. The Syrian opposition, which on Tuesday said a forensic scientist had defected to the rebel side bringing evidence of Assad forces’ use of sarin gas in March, has appealed to Western allies to send them weapons and use their air power to end a war that has killed more than 100,000 and made millions homeless. The presence in rebel ranks of Islamist militants, some of them close to Al Qaeda, has made Western leaders wary, while at the same time the undoubted – and apparently accelerating – human cost of the conflict has brought pressure to intervene. The chairman of the US Senate Armed Services Committee said on Tuesday he was confident after talking with Obama that the United States would step up its support for “vetted” elements of the Syrian opposition. Senator Carl Levin said he urged the president, a fellow Democrat, to arm the Syrian rebels a day after two influential Republican senators, John McCain and Lindsey Graham, sought similar assurances from Obama. Levin said he told the White House that the United States should provide rebels with arms such as anti-tank weapons “which cannot be turned on us.” Top House Democrat Nancy Pelosi also voiced support for military strikes after meeting Obama on Tuesday, but Obama will still have to persuade some lawmakers, including Democrats, who have said they are concerned the president’s draft resolution could be too open-ended and allow possible use of ground troops or eventual attacks on other countries. US Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel took the administration’s message to a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Tuesday. Kerry said the world was watching to see what the United States would do. “They want to know if America will rise to this moment and make a difference,” he told senators at the hearing. After two and a half years of war, nearly one Syrian in three has been driven from home by violence and fear. The UN refugee agency UNHCR said there had been a near tenfold increase over the past 12 months in the rate of refugees crossing Syria’s borders into Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon – to a daily average of nearly 5,000 men, women and children. This has pushed the total living abroad above 2 million. That represents some 10 per cent of Syria’s population, the UNHCR said. With a further 4.25 million estimated to have been displaced but still resident inside the country, close to a third of all Syrians are living away from their original homes. Comparing the figures to the peak of Afghanistan’s refugee crisis two decades ago, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, said: “Syria has become the great tragedy of this century – a disgraceful humanitarian calamity with suffering and displacement unparalleled in recent history.” Speaking of the acceleration in the crisis, he said: “What is appalling is that the first million fled Syria in two years. “The second million fled Syria in six months,” Guterres said. “The risks for global peace and security that the present Syria crisis represents, I’m sure, are not smaller than what we have witnessed in any other crisis that we have had since the Vietnam war,” said Guterres, a former Portuguese prime minister. Russia, backed by China, has used its veto power in the UN Security Council three times to block resolutions condemning Assad’s government and threatening it with sanctions. Assad, like Russia, blames the rebels for the August 21 gas attack. Obama has said he is “comfortable going forward without the approval of a United Nations Security Council that so far has been completely paralysed and unwilling to hold Assad accountable.” Ban questioned whether the use of force to deter Syria or other countries from deploying chemical arms in the future could do more harm than good. In an interview in Tuesday’s Le Figaro , Assad told the Paris newspaper: “Everybody will lose control of the situation when the powder keg blows. There is a risk of a regional war.” The rebels have been struggling to hold ground in recent months, let alone advance. According to one opposition report, government forces took the strategic northwestern town of Ariha on Tuesday, though others said the battle was not over. Continue reading
