Скачать или смотреть Syrian opposition official and UK analyst comment on UNSC position on Syria

(1 Feb 2012) A high-ranking official of the opposition Syrian National Council has said he backs the Arab League's plan being debated at the UN Security Council, but that military intervention in Syria is not an option.
Retired ambassador Bassam Imadi, speaking in exile in Istanbul, said he believes that Security Council members have no intention of sending in troops to stop the almost 11 month old uprising.
"If there is unity, it is on non-intervention, military intervention that is," he said. "After the story of Libya, and of course Iraq before that, it seems the world is not set on any further military intervention."
Imadi warned that Russia will be "in a very awkward position" if it continues to oppose an Arab League draft resolution on Syria.
"The plan is designed to be either endorsed or rejected by the Security Council. This will put full responsibility on the party which refuses to endorse it," Imadi said.
On Tuesday, Western powers and Arab countries at the UN sought to overcome Russia's opposition to the measure.
Addressing the Security Council, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton tried to allay Moscow's concerns that the resolution could open the door to eventual military intervention in Syria, as took place in Libya last year.
Russia has stood by President Bashar Assad as he tries to crush a bloody uprising that began last March.
In October, Moscow vetoed the first Security Council attempt to condemn Syria's crackdown and has shown little sign of budging in its rejection of the new measure.
The latest resolution would demand Assad carry out an Arab League peace plan by which he would hand his powers to the vice president and allow formation of a unity government to pave the way for
elections.
Professor Malcolm Chalmers, research director at the British defence and security think tank the Royal United Service Institute said Russia's rejection of the agreement was disappointing.
"It means that there is really very little prospect of concerted international action, certainly at an UN level, to stop this conflict continuing," he said.
But he does not think this is the end of the road for a UN resolution.
"I suspect we are going to come back again and again to the Security Council with proposals to break this impasse," he said.
The UN estimated several weeks ago that more than 5,400 people have been killed in the Syrian government crackdown, but has not been able to update the figure.
The death toll from Monday's offensive in the suburbs was around 100 people, making it among the bloodiest days since the uprising began, according to the two activist groups.

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