“The Syrian Government has formally responded to the Joint Special Envoy for Syria, Kofi Annan’s six-point plan, as endorsed by the UN Security Council. Mr. Annan is studying it and will respond very shortly,” his spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said in a statement giving no further details.

Earlier on Monday, Annan told journalists in Moscow he could not set a deadline for a resolution of the Syrian crisis after a year of bloodshed but it could not drag on indefinitely.