By Merle David Kellerhals Jr.
IIP Staff Writer
Washington
January 30, 2012

“The regime has failed to meet its commitments to the Arab League to halt its acts of violence, withdraw its military forces from residential areas, allow journalists and monitors to operate freely and release prisoners arrested because of the current unrest,” Clinton said in a statement January 30.

Clinton condemned the escalating violence while charging the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad of “violent and brutal attacks on its own people.” She called on the U.N. Security Council to act and make clear to Assad’s regime that the world views its actions as a threat to peace and security.

“The violence must end, so that a new period of democratic transition can begin,” Clinton said.

Clinton will attend the opening of Security Council debate on Syria January 31 in New York. The Security Council is considering a resolution that calls for the Syrian government to carry out an Arab League peace plan. The French and British foreign ministers are also traveling to New York to bolster efforts to find a suitable resolution to the continuing violence in the 10-month-old civil strife.

The United Nations has estimated that 5,400 people have been killed in the fighting between rebel forces and the Syrian government security forces.

A U.N. Security Council resolution requires at least nine members of the 15-member council to approve, though any of the five permanent members can veto council action. The Arab League plan calls for a transition of power where Assad would relinquish power to his vice president and permit the creation of a unity government within two months of stepping down. The Damascus regime has rejected that plan.

“The longer the Assad regime continues its attacks on the Syrian people and stands in the way of a peaceful transition, the greater the concern that instability will escalate and spill over throughout the region,” Clinton said.

White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters January 30 that the United States believes the Security Council should not permit the Assad regime to assault the Syrian people while it rejects the Arab League’s proposal for a political solution.

“We do support the Arab League’s role in this process. And governments that act to prop up Assad’s brutal regime will find themselves in a small minority and criticized for abetting further human rights violations,” Carney said.

Ambassador Susan Rice, the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations, said in New York January 30 that the United States believes it crucial that the Security Council support and embrace the Arab League peace plan in total.

The 22-member Arab League suspended its observer mission in Syria, saying that it was unsafe to continue operations because of the “grave deterioration of the situation in Syria, and the continuation of violence and exchange of shelling and shooting.”

Rice told reporters outside the Security Council chambers that the resolution that will be discussed is timely.

“We think that what is contained in this resolution is quite straightforward. There are no sanctions,” Rice said. There is no use of force or threat of the use of force contained in the U.N. resolution that backs the Arab League plan, she added.

“It is primarily a straightforward condemnation of what has transpired, a call upon the government of Syria to adhere to the commitments it made to the Arab League, and an endorsement of the Arab League plan,” Rice told reporters.

Rice said that the optimal outcome would be a unified statement from the Security Council.

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