Syrian opposition trying to disrupt Annan’s peace plan

The Syrian opposition is attempting to disrupt Kofi Anna’s peace plan and trigger violence. Reportedly, militants of the Free Syrian Army are using refugee camps in Turkey to make preparations for launching attacks on checkpoints. The Foreign Ministers of Russia and Morocco, Sergei Lavrov and Saadeddin al-Othmani discussed the situation in Syria at their meeting.

The Russian Foreign Minister said there are some people who are interested in seeing Annan’s plan end in a fiasco. In this case, other options, especially force, can be used.

“I have personally seen how my colleagues were disappointed when they got to know that the Syrian government had agreed with the Annan plan. Lately, mass media, especially the Western European and the Turkish press have provided a growing amount of evidence that the armed opposition had tried to provoke and trigger violence so as to break the ceasefire and find a pretext to “bury” the Annan plan. We were told that the Turkish newspapers had evidence that the Free Syrian Army militants misuse the status of refugee camps in Turkey. They are training to carry out attacks on Syrian checkpoints. This proves what they want to achieve now that the ceasefire is in force,” Sergei Lavrov said.

A heavy handed approach was applied in Libya. But it’s unclear whether this has really solved the conflict. The use of force to solve the crisis in the country would further destabilize the situation. As a result, an internal crisis will grow into a regional one, Sergei Lavrov said.

“After the use of NATO military aircraft to launch attacks on Libya in violation of the UN Security Council mandate, the situation in the country was seriously destabilized. We are actively supporting the efforts taken by the provisional government to maintain law and order, but the problems facing the country have not been reduced. Besides, the continuing violence in Libya and instability are spilling over to neighbouring countries in the form of smuggling weapons and the infiltration of militants. We have seen the results of these destabilizing processes, for one, in Mali. All this strengths our confidence that the repetition of the Libyan scenario is inadmissible in any country,” Sergei Lavrov added.

Moscow is actively holding a dialogue with both the Syrian government and the opposition. This work has produced results. The Foreign Minister of Morocco Saadeddin al-Othmani hopes that Russia will press for the fulfillment of the plan by the joint special envoy of the United Nations and the League of Arab States to Syria Kofi Annan.

“We believe that Russia has played a big role in implementing the plan and in convincing the Syrian government to accept it. This shows that Russia’s participation is important in solving this crisis and others. We continue to hope that Kofi Annan’s mission will be successful, and we also believe that the Russian Federation can play an effective role in convincing the Syrian government to honour the ceasefire, and withdraw its troops from the cities,” Saadeddin al-Othmani said.

Monitoring the ceasefire is a provision of the plan proposed by Kofi Annan and adopted by the UN Security Council. The Russian Foreign Minister has once again urged the UN Secretary General not to delay making concrete proposals on the monitoring of the mission to the Security Council.

Reportedly, the Security Council will discuss the issue on Wednesday and give permission to send UN monitors to Syria. The first group of six monitors arrived in the country on Monday. Another 25 people will arrive shortly.