U.S. blasts Russia, China for rise in Syria violence
TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) � U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton blasted Russia and China as "despicable" for opposing U.N. action aimed at stopping the bloodshed in Syria, and more than 60 nations began planning a civilian peacekeeping mission to deploy after the Damascus regime halts its crackdown on the opposition.
In his most forceful words to date on the Syrian crisis, President Barack Obama said the United States and its allies would use "every tool available" to end the bloodshed by the government of President Bashar Assad.
"It is time to stop the killing of Syrian citizens by their own government," Obama said in Washington, adding that it "absolutely imperative for the international community to rally and send a clear message to President Assad that it is time for a transition. It is time for that regime to move on."
Obama spoke as a group known as the Friends of Syria, led by the United States and European and Arab nations, met in Tunisia in the latest effort to halt the Assad regime's nearly year-old suppression of an anti-government uprising.
The group's actions are aimed at jolting Assad and his allies into accepting demands for a democratic transition, even as it is still unwilling to commit to military intervention.
Assad allies Russia and China, which blocked U.N. action on Syria and are eager to prevent any repeat of the kind of foreign intervention that happened in Libya, gave no sign they would agree to peacekeepers. Russia and China have vetoed U.N. Security Council resolutions backing Arab League plans aimed at ending the conflict and condemning Assad's crackdown.
Their vetoes prompted a particularly strong reaction from Clinton.
"It's quite distressing to see two permanent members of the Security Council using their veto while people are being murdered � women, children, brave young men � houses are being destroyed," she said. "It is just despicable, and I ask whose side are they on? They are clearly not on the side of the Syrian people."
The conference called on Assad to end the violence immediately and allow humanitarian aid into areas hit by his regime's crackdown. The group pledged to boost relief shipments to Syria, but it was unclear how aid would be distributed without regime approval.
Syrian government troops kept up the shelling of rebel-held neighborhoods in the besieged central city of Homs, while thousands of people in dozens of towns staged anti-regime protests. Activists said at least 50 people were killed nationwide yesterday.