Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, said on Tuesday that he regretted the recent shooting down of a Turkish fighter jet amid border tensions, as diplomatic efforts to address the Syrian crisis became further mired in confusion.
In an interview with the Turkish Cumhuriyet newspaper, Mr Assad said that the F4 aircraft, which Turkey says was downed without warning over international waters after briefly entering Syrian airspace, was shot after entering the same corridor of Syrian airspace previously used by Israeli jets.
“We learned it belonged to Turkey after shooting it down. I say 100 per cent ‘if only we had not shot it down’,” Mr Assad was quoted as saying.
The interview – apparently intended to reduce tensions – came as Turkey scrambled its jets for the third consecutive day. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkish prime minister, responded to the F-4 incident by announcing that any Syrian forces approaching the Turkish border would be considered a potential military threat.
Divisions in the international community’s response to Syria were meanwhile highlighted on Tuesday as Russia criticised those who had “distorted” a transition plan for Syria agreed by international powers.
The document, agreed in Geneva on Saturday, calls for the transfer of power to a transitional government to be formed by “mutual consent,” which could include both members of the current government and the opposition. Western officials have said that this, in effect, precludes Mr Assad from remaining in power.
Russia however has opposed the principle of outside interference in Mr Assad’s fate, and Sergei Lavrov, foreign minister, said on Tuesday that unlike some other participants in the conference Russia was “not trying to hint at anything more than what is written down in the text”.
Ahmad Fawzi, the spokesperson for international envoy Kofi Annan, who convened the Geneva conference, told reporters on Tuesday that Saturday’s agreement nonetheless represented a shift in China and Russia’s position “to accept the principle of a policy change”.
Divisions have also plagued the Syrian opposition, which met for a second day of talks in Cairo on Tuesday.
The inability of the opposition to unite around a credible political leadership is seen as one of the main obstacles to tougher action among anti-Assad powers, some of whom are expected to meet in Paris on Friday.
The urgency of the need to find a solution to the crisis in Syria was underscored on Tuesday by activists’ reports of shelling of opposition areas, and the release of an investigation in to the extent of torture in Syrian prisons by the New York-based NGO Human Rights Watch.
The report, one of the most detailed accounts yet of torture practices in Syria, documents the use of more than 20 different torture methods in 27 detention facilities.
Drawing on over 200 interviews, it describes the methods used by Syrian security and intelligence officials including “prolonged beatings, often with objects such as batons and cables, holding the detainees in painful stress positions for prolonged periods of time, the use of electricity, burning with acid, sexual assault and humiliation, the pulling of fingernails, and mock execution.”
Human Rights Watch called on the UN Security Council to refer Syria to the International Criminal Court and to adopt targeted sanctions against the officials it identified as “credibly implicated”.
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In an interview with the Turkish Cumhuriyet newspaper, Mr Assad said that the F4 aircraft, which Turkey says was downed without warning over international waters after briefly entering Syrian airspace, was shot after entering the same corridor of Syrian airspace previously used by Israeli jets.
“We learned it belonged to Turkey after shooting it down. I say 100 per cent ‘if only we had not shot it down’,” Mr Assad was quoted as saying.
The interview – apparently intended to reduce tensions – came as Turkey scrambled its jets for the third consecutive day. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkish prime minister, responded to the F-4 incident by announcing that any Syrian forces approaching the Turkish border would be considered a potential military threat.
Divisions in the international community’s response to Syria were meanwhile highlighted on Tuesday as Russia criticised those who had “distorted” a transition plan for Syria agreed by international powers.
The document, agreed in Geneva on Saturday, calls for the transfer of power to a transitional government to be formed by “mutual consent,” which could include both members of the current government and the opposition. Western officials have said that this, in effect, precludes Mr Assad from remaining in power.
Russia however has opposed the principle of outside interference in Mr Assad’s fate, and Sergei Lavrov, foreign minister, said on Tuesday that unlike some other participants in the conference Russia was “not trying to hint at anything more than what is written down in the text”.
Ahmad Fawzi, the spokesperson for international envoy Kofi Annan, who convened the Geneva conference, told reporters on Tuesday that Saturday’s agreement nonetheless represented a shift in China and Russia’s position “to accept the principle of a policy change”.
Divisions have also plagued the Syrian opposition, which met for a second day of talks in Cairo on Tuesday.
The inability of the opposition to unite around a credible political leadership is seen as one of the main obstacles to tougher action among anti-Assad powers, some of whom are expected to meet in Paris on Friday.
The urgency of the need to find a solution to the crisis in Syria was underscored on Tuesday by activists’ reports of shelling of opposition areas, and the release of an investigation in to the extent of torture in Syrian prisons by the New York-based NGO Human Rights Watch.
The report, one of the most detailed accounts yet of torture practices in Syria, documents the use of more than 20 different torture methods in 27 detention facilities.
Drawing on over 200 interviews, it describes the methods used by Syrian security and intelligence officials including “prolonged beatings, often with objects such as batons and cables, holding the detainees in painful stress positions for prolonged periods of time, the use of electricity, burning with acid, sexual assault and humiliation, the pulling of fingernails, and mock execution.”
Human Rights Watch called on the UN Security Council to refer Syria to the International Criminal Court and to adopt targeted sanctions against the officials it identified as “credibly implicated”.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012. You may share using our article tools.
Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.