UNITED NATIONS ? The tensions over the forces for change erupting across the Middle East were coming to a head here on Tuesday as Arab and Western states confronted Russia over its refusal to condemn the Syrian government for its violent suppression of popular protests.
In the hours leading up to the diplomatic duel in the Security Council, the steady drumbeat of violence continued unabated in Syria, where government forces pushed rebels back from strongholds near Damascus.
With a draft Security Council resolution put on the table by Morocco that calls for President Bashar al-Assad to step aside to speed a democratic transition, Russia stressed its opposition to any such plan even while attempting to distance Moscow from the man himself.
?The Russian policy is not about asking someone to step down; regime change is not our profession,? Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. during a stop on his Asia tour.
?We are not friends or allies of President Assad,? he went on, according to a transcript on the Interfax news service, evidently hoping to deflect accusations that Moscow should be held responsible for the widening bloodshed. ?We never said that Assad remaining in power is a precondition for regulating the situation. We said something else ? we said that the decision should be made by Syrians, by the Syrians themselves.?
Mr. Lavrov made it clear that it was the ghost of Libya and recent Security Council resolutions that haunts the debate on Syria in the United Nations and beyond.
?The international community unfortunately did take sides in Libya and we would never allow the Security Council to authorize anything similar,? Mr. Lavrov said.
Chances of a repeat of the use of outside armed force in Libya are virtually nil because of concerns that the implosion of Syria could drag other neighbors, like Israel, Iraq and Lebanon, into a wider conflagration. �The specter of a bloody, sectarian civil war like that in Iraq would also serve as a block against such a move.
The resolution sets out the steps needed for a transition to democracy. First Mr. Assad steps down in favor of his vice president, then a unity government is formed with the opposition, paving the way for a new constitution and legislative elections.
To stress the high level of Western interest in adopting a resolution, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, along with the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Portugal, headed to the Security Council meeting.
They have all made statements about the need to stop the spiraling violence in Syria. After the death toll reached more than 5,400 in January, the United Nations stopped counting because it said figures were too hard to confirm. Part of the West?s interest is that the demise of Mr. Assad would weaken the position of Iran in the region as well as that of its main Arab ally, Hezbollah, which continues to back the Damascus government.
The Arab League was briefing the council on why it passed a resolution demanding that Mr. Assad step down. The wording of the Arab League measure was adopted almost wholesale in the draft Security Council resolution.
Nabil Elaraby, the league?s secretary general, and Sheik Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, the Qatari prime minister, were expected to try to convince council members that the move is less about regime change and more about meeting the democratic aspirations of the Syrian people who have been demonstrating for some 11 months.
No vote is scheduled today ? the haggling over the wording will commence in earnest again on Wednesday. But privately diplomats were expecting a showdown vote, with at least Russia resorting to a veto, to come as early as Friday. Russia and China vetoed a similar resolution last October.
Russia, backed discretely by China and India, rejects the idea that the world organization can interfere in the domestic politics of any country to force regime change.
They all feel that they were duped into supporting a no-fly zone over Libya to protect civilians last March, and are infuriated at the West for using it as a license to help overthrow Libyan leader Muammar al-Qadhafi. To a certain extent, both the Arab League and the rest of the world were ready to dump Mr. Qadhafi because he had no friends. Syria does, but the issue is larger than Syria itself.
Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=0eb89c4901f08a30341bf2d5162e1442
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