Advanced UN Observer Team for Syria on Standby The spokesman for international envoy Kofi Annan says an advance team of U.N. observers is ready to enter Syria, where the ceasefire is "relatively respected" despite government troops and heavy weapons still in population centers. Ahmad Fawzi says "we have the advanced team standing by to board planes and get themselves on the ground as soon as possible." In this photo provided by the United Nations, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon speaks via telephone to with U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan from his hotel room in Geneva, Switzerland on Thursday, April 12, 2012, the deadline for the cease-fire in Syria. Syria's opposition called for widespread protests Friday to test the regime's commitment to an internationally brokered cease-fire that the U.N. chief described as so fragile it could collapse with a single gunshot. (AP Photo/The United Nations, Evan Schneider) Close Fawzi told reporters in Geneva the team would prepare the way for a full mission of up to 250 observers on the ground if the U.N. Security Council gives approval as hoped when it meets later Friday. He says the full mission would help keep the peace "if the ceasefire holds and it turns into a genuine cessation of hostilities." Fawzi says Syria's approval for the U.N. mission also is needed.