UN troops to reinforce shaky peace in Syria
Terms of mission weakened in order to secure Russian support for deal
UNITED NATIONS— The Security Council voted unanimously Saturday to send up to 30 blue berets to Syria as the spearhead of a UN monitoring mission charged with reinforcing a shaky two-day ceasefire between the Syrian government and armed insurgents.
Aspokesman for special envoy Kofi Annan said Saturday that an advance team of six monitors would arrive in Syria within 24 hours and deploy within 36 hours, with more to follow within days.
The vote places the United Nations at the centre of one of the most volatile crises of the Arab Spring and offers the outside world independent eyewitness to what has unfolded during a13-month crackdown on anti-government protesters that left more than 9,000 dead and pitched the country into civil war.
The ceasefire, which went into effect Thursday, appeared to be fraying Saturday.
There were reports of renewed tank and artillery fire in several areas of the embattled city of Homs. At least five people were said to have been killed in the relatively peaceful city of Aleppo when security forces used live ammunition to suppress demonstrators at a funeral.
The Security Council resolution followed a contentious round of negotiations that pitted the United States and its European and Arab allies against Russia. Moscow had opposed efforts to include language requiring Syria to empower the monitors with greater freedom of movement and action, saying their mandate needed to be negotiated with the Syrian government.
To secure Russian support, the United States and other key sponsors of the resolution were forced to strip out provisions that would have required Syria to provide unimpeded access throughout the country. Instead, it merely “calls upon” the Syrian government to guarantee “full, unimpeded, and immediate freedom of movement and access” for the UN monitors.
U.S. and European diplomats welcomed the decision to deploy UN monitors in Syria but remained skeptical about Syria’s willingness to end its violent repression of antigovernment targets.
“We are under no illusions,” said Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. “Two days of diminished violence after a year of murderous rampage hardly proves that the regime is serious about honouring its commitments.”
Still, the council resolution reinforces Kofi Annan’s six-point plan, which calls on both sides to cease fighting and enter political talks. The plan also urges Syria to release political prisoners, guarantees freedom of movement for journalists and humanitarian aid workers, and allows peaceful demonstrations. Syria’s UN envoy, Bashar Al-jaafari, told the council that his government will “spare no effort to guarantee the success” of Annan’s peace plan and that it supports the plan for a UN monitoring mission as long as it does not violate Syrian sovereignty. But he said Syria is engaged in negotiations with Annan’s team on the mandate of such a mission. He also claimed that Syrian opposition elements have been responsible for 50 violations of the ceasefire, a claim that was challenged by Rice and other council diplomats. With files from Reuters