Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague and French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe on Monday said they will attend UN talks scheduled for Tuesday.
Officials hope Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim and Arab League officials can persuade Russia and China to back a UN Security Council resolution. Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby left for New York on Sunday where he will brief representatives of the Security Council on Tuesday, seeking support for the Arab peace plan, which calls for President Bashar Assad to step down.
France and Britain crafted the resolution in consultation with Qatar and Morocco, as well as Germany, Portugal and the United States. It is intended to supersede a Russian draft that Western delegations say is too accommodating to Assad and also no longer relevant in light of the recent Arab League proposals. Russia says it won't support any resolution which could enable foreign military intervention.
British Prime Minister David Cameron's office says Russia's stance is "providing cover for the regime's brutal oppression."
The Syrian authorities, meanwhile, agreed to an offer by Russia to have informal talks in Moscow with opposition representatives to resolve the crisis in the country, the Russian foreign ministry said Monday.
“Our offer has already received a positive response from the Syrian authorities. We are expecting that the opposition will also give their assent in the next days and put the interests of the Syrian people before any other ideas,” it said. However, a member of the Syrian opposition said that the Syrian National Council had not received any formal invitation to attend the talks with Syria's authorities in Russia, and would decline if one arrived.
Veto-holding Russia, which said last week that parts of the Western-Arab draft resolution were unacceptable, said on Monday it wanted the Council to hear directly from the Arab League's observer mission in Syria before discussing any resolutions. The French-backed draft resolution calls for a "political transition" in Syria. While not calling for UN sanctions against Damascus, it does say that the Security Council could "adopt further measures" if Syria does not comply with the terms of the resolution.
“It is time the Security Council acts to find a solution to this crisis,” Valero said in a daily briefing to reporters. Escalating bloodshed prompted the Arab League to suspend the work of its monitoring mission on Saturday. Arab foreign ministers, who have urged Assad to make way for a government of national unity, will discuss the crisis on Feb. 5. "The situation in Syria is appalling and is just getting worse," Valero said. "Everything must be done to put an end to the spiral of violence that has led to the bloody repression which we've seen for the last 10 months."
At least 13 civilians and six members of the security forces were killed in clashes across Syria on Monday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Near the capital, troops penetrated Rankus, 40 km north of Damascus, after having shelled the town which had been encircled for the past six days, the Observatory said.
It said nine civilians were killed as security forces stormed Homs in central Syria, including a young girl hit by gunfire from a checkpoint in the Karm Al-Zeitun district of the flashpoint city.
Four civilians were killed in the Qussur district, another was hit by machinegun fire in Baba Amro and a sniper shot dead a man in the city's Wadi Iran quarter, the rights group said. A young man was shot dead in the Homs province town of Qusseir, according to the London-based rights group.
It also reported that unidentified assailants killed a doctor in Shammas, also in Homs, while the state news agency said Dr Mustapha Safar was shot dead by a "terrorist group."
Elsewhere, rebel soldiers "attacked a minibus carrying six security officers on their way to make arrests in Hirak, killing all of the passengers," said the Observatory, in statements received in Nicosia. Government forces responded by deploying two tanks which opened fire and killed three civilians in the Daraa province town of southern Syria, it said.
Elsewhere in Daraa, cradle of the 10-month uprising against Assad's regime, a civilian was killed by indiscriminate fire in the town of Saida, the watchdog added.
Near the capital, the Observatory and activists at the scene said deserters pulled out of Rankus as the army moved in. In the eastern suburbs, snipers were "shooting at everything that moves" in Irbin and Hammurieh, it added.
