Kofi Annan announces to make efforts towards Syria

The U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria Kofi Annan, announced before he would urge Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his foes to stop fighting and seek a political solution, drawing angry rebukes from dissidents. Annan announced about this as he got the position as the UN envoy to Syria.

“The killing has to stop and we need to find a way of putting in the appropriate reforms and moving forward,” Annan said on Thursday in Cairo ahead of his trip to Damascus on Saturday. Chicagotribune.com writes about this. 

Syrian dissidents reacted with dismay and said government repression had destroyed prospects of a negotiated deal. According to the UN index more than 7,500 people have been killed in a crackdown on an uprising against Assad, which started a year ago.

“We reject any dialogue while tanks shell our towns, snipers shoot our women and children and many areas are cut off from the world by the regime without electricity, communications or water,” said Hadi Abdullah, contacted in the city of Homs.

Another activist told Reuters Annan’s call for dialogue sounded “like a wink at Bashar” that would only encourage Assad to “crush the revolution”.

U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos, on a separate mission to Syria, said she was “devastated” by the destruction she had seen in the Baba Amr district of Homs city, and wanted to know what had happened to its residents, who endured a 26-day military siege before rebel fighters withdrew a week ago.

Amos is the first senior foreign official to visit Baba Amr since the government assault.

As world pressure on Syria mounted, the deputy oil minister announced his defection, the first by a senior civilian official since the start of the uprising. Abdo Hussameldin, 58, said he knew his change of sides would bring persecution on his family.

Two rebel groups later said four more high-ranking military officers had defected over the past three days to a camp for Syrian army deserters in southern Turkey.

In Damascus, the authorities continued to crack down on Assad opponents, with government forces shooting and wounding three mourners at a funeral for an army defector that turned into a protest against the president, locals said.

Opposition sources and residents say protests in the capital are driven by inflation and the plunging value of the Syrian pound. The West uses various measures to make Syrian authorities to resign. The latter tries to stand against the pressure yet.

Russia and China prevented the resolution of the UN Security Council twice.