[h=3]By JOE LAURIA, MARGARET COKER and FARNAZ FASSIHI[/h]The United Nations General Assembly is scheduled to vote Friday on a resolution reprimanding Syria for its use of heavy weaponry against civilians and domestic insurgents, a largely symbolic gesture at a time when consensus is growing that the conflict will only be solved by fighting—not diplomacy.
Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesA boy plays on the gun of a destroyed Syrian army tank partially covered in the rubble of the destroyed Azaz mosques, north of the restive city of Aleppo, on Thursday.
Inside Syria, meanwhile, both sides of the conflict continued to dig in for what could be a lengthy battle over control of Aleppo, the country's largest city, amid signs that President Bashar al-Assad is strategizing over ways to prolong his survival instead of breaking the international diplomatic stalemate.
Top officials of the Syrian regime were in Moscow Friday working to strengthen financial and diplomatic ties with the Russians. At the same time, U.N. peacekeepers are reporting that the government is sending considerable reinforcements to the city, portions of which still appear to be under control of units of the Free Syrian Army.
The international community is still struggling to identify a new strategy to manage the conflict in the wake of Kofi Annan's resignation as the U.N. envoy to Syria. U.N. agencies have warned this week that tens of thousands of Syrian civilians need urgent food aid.
Yet the spread of fighting into Syria's population centers—and the hardening diplomatic lines between Syria's international allies in Moscow and Beijing and the rebels' supporters in Washington and Europe—has prompted a growing consensus that the time for diplomatic solutions has ended.
Syria's conflict, which started in March 2011 with peaceful protests, has since turned into an armed rebellion engulfing villages and cities and claiming an estimated 19,000 lives. It has taken on sectarian shades, pulling in Islamic fundamentalist fighters and threatening to inflame the region.
International diplomats, including the most powerful voices at the U.N., failed to come to a consensus on how to contain it. On the U.N. Security Council, Russia and China three times blocked plans by Western powers, led by the U.S., to arrange for President Assad's exit.
[h=3]Syria in the Spotlight[/h]Take a look back over the highlights of the past year in Syria in a timeline, and review the latest events in a map.
Mr. Annan said Thursday that he would leave his post as the U.N. and Arab League's special envoy to Syria when his six-month term ends in August. He blasted Syria's government for intransigence and the international community for disunity, and singled out the Security Council, where he accused diplomats of bickering and ignoring an increasingly desperate plight of Syrian civilians.
The Syrian government broke promises to end hostilities, while neighboring countries were sending better and more arms to Syria's rebels. By last month, some unarmed U.N. observers sent to the country to monitor the purported cease-fire deal had left the country, while others were largely confined to their hotels.
"As an envoy, I can't want peace more than the protagonists, more than the Security Council or the international community, for that matter," Mr. Annan said Thursday in Geneva.
"The increasing militarization on the ground and the clear lack of unity in the Security Council have fundamentally changed the circumstances for the effective exercise of my role," he said. "The bloodshed continues, most of all because of the Syrian government's intransigence and continuing refusal to implement the six-point plan, and also because of the escalating military campaign of the opposition—all of which is compounded by the disunity of the international community."
Some Syrian activists and opposition members from the Syrian National Council urged the international community to act outside the mandate of the Security Council by imposing a no-fly zone over some parts of Syria now in control of rebels.
"The events on the ground are getting worse for the Syrian population. The time for diplomatic negotiations is for sure over. We need international intervention now," said Radwan Ziadeh, a senior member of the umbrella opposition group Syrian National Council in Washington.
The U.S. and its allies have shown no appetite for such intervention. The U.S. said Thursday it was boosting its humanitarian assistance to Syrian civilians to $76 million from $64 million since the conflict started.
Mr. Annan's resignation served as a reminder that Russia and China, by failing to support Security Council resolutions, were "on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of the Syrian people," said White House spokesman Jay Carney. Top U.S. officials also condemned Mr. Assad for breaking his promises to abide by the Annan plan.
"[Mr. Annan's] mission could never have succeeded so long as the Assad regime continuously broke its pledges to implement the six-point plan and persisted in using horrific violence against its own people," said Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N.
Syria disputed such characterizations and voiced sorrow at the resignation.
"Syria has expressed and proven its total commitment to the Annan plan and cooperated with the observers," Syria's Foreign Ministry said. "The countries seeking to destabilize Syria are the ones that impeded and continue to impede the mission."
A spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said both the U.N. and the Arab League were seeking a replacement for Mr. Annan.
When Mr. Annan took up the assignment on March 1, a year into the conflict, neither he nor the international community held illusions that the job would be easy. "I accepted this task, which some called 'Mission Impossible,'" he said in Geneva. He arranged a cease-fire that was due to take effect April 12. It unraveled within days.
Mr. Annan's efforts were probably doomed from the start because the international six-point plan was too little, too late, said Anthony Cordesman, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
"I don't believe that Kofi Annan can be blamed for hoping that Assad might have behaved differently," Mr. Cordesman said. "But the fact is that this entire effort came late. The whole idea that observers could keep the peace was very, very optimistic from the start."
A mounting feud between the West and Russia has provided the backdrop to Mr. Annan's efforts.
Western diplomats accuse Russia of backing a serial human-rights abuser in Damascus and of falsely claiming the West is planning military intervention in Syria.
The West had "fanned the flames of extremists and terrorist groups" in pursuit of "their own geopolitical designs that have nothing to do with the Syrian people, which has led to tragic consequences," Vitaly Churkin, Russia's U.N. ambassador, said after Moscow vetoed the latest Security Council bid to engineer a political transition.
Mr. Churkin said Thursday that Moscow also regrets Mr. Annan's decision to step down. He said he was encouraged by Mr. Ban's search for a replacement.
In a statement Friday on the website of China's Foreign Ministry, spokesman Hong Lei said Chinese officials "understand the difficulties of Annan's mediation work, and respect his decision."
China, which has positively cited Mr. Annan's efforts as an alternative to more stern measures pressed by the U.S., reiterated that it believes "the fundamental solution for Syria is for the international community to adhere to a political solution," Mr. Hong said.
—Nour Malas in Damascus, Dion Nissenbaum in Washington and Laurence Norman in Brussels contributed to this article.Write to Joe Lauria at [email protected], Margaret Coker at [email protected] and Farnaz Fassihi at [email protected]
Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesA boy plays on the gun of a destroyed Syrian army tank partially covered in the rubble of the destroyed Azaz mosques, north of the restive city of Aleppo, on Thursday.
Inside Syria, meanwhile, both sides of the conflict continued to dig in for what could be a lengthy battle over control of Aleppo, the country's largest city, amid signs that President Bashar al-Assad is strategizing over ways to prolong his survival instead of breaking the international diplomatic stalemate.
Top officials of the Syrian regime were in Moscow Friday working to strengthen financial and diplomatic ties with the Russians. At the same time, U.N. peacekeepers are reporting that the government is sending considerable reinforcements to the city, portions of which still appear to be under control of units of the Free Syrian Army.
The international community is still struggling to identify a new strategy to manage the conflict in the wake of Kofi Annan's resignation as the U.N. envoy to Syria. U.N. agencies have warned this week that tens of thousands of Syrian civilians need urgent food aid.
Yet the spread of fighting into Syria's population centers—and the hardening diplomatic lines between Syria's international allies in Moscow and Beijing and the rebels' supporters in Washington and Europe—has prompted a growing consensus that the time for diplomatic solutions has ended.
Syria's conflict, which started in March 2011 with peaceful protests, has since turned into an armed rebellion engulfing villages and cities and claiming an estimated 19,000 lives. It has taken on sectarian shades, pulling in Islamic fundamentalist fighters and threatening to inflame the region.
International diplomats, including the most powerful voices at the U.N., failed to come to a consensus on how to contain it. On the U.N. Security Council, Russia and China three times blocked plans by Western powers, led by the U.S., to arrange for President Assad's exit.
[h=3]Syria in the Spotlight[/h]Take a look back over the highlights of the past year in Syria in a timeline, and review the latest events in a map.
Mr. Annan said Thursday that he would leave his post as the U.N. and Arab League's special envoy to Syria when his six-month term ends in August. He blasted Syria's government for intransigence and the international community for disunity, and singled out the Security Council, where he accused diplomats of bickering and ignoring an increasingly desperate plight of Syrian civilians.
The Syrian government broke promises to end hostilities, while neighboring countries were sending better and more arms to Syria's rebels. By last month, some unarmed U.N. observers sent to the country to monitor the purported cease-fire deal had left the country, while others were largely confined to their hotels.
"As an envoy, I can't want peace more than the protagonists, more than the Security Council or the international community, for that matter," Mr. Annan said Thursday in Geneva.
"The increasing militarization on the ground and the clear lack of unity in the Security Council have fundamentally changed the circumstances for the effective exercise of my role," he said. "The bloodshed continues, most of all because of the Syrian government's intransigence and continuing refusal to implement the six-point plan, and also because of the escalating military campaign of the opposition—all of which is compounded by the disunity of the international community."
Some Syrian activists and opposition members from the Syrian National Council urged the international community to act outside the mandate of the Security Council by imposing a no-fly zone over some parts of Syria now in control of rebels.
"The events on the ground are getting worse for the Syrian population. The time for diplomatic negotiations is for sure over. We need international intervention now," said Radwan Ziadeh, a senior member of the umbrella opposition group Syrian National Council in Washington.
The U.S. and its allies have shown no appetite for such intervention. The U.S. said Thursday it was boosting its humanitarian assistance to Syrian civilians to $76 million from $64 million since the conflict started.
Mr. Annan's resignation served as a reminder that Russia and China, by failing to support Security Council resolutions, were "on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of the Syrian people," said White House spokesman Jay Carney. Top U.S. officials also condemned Mr. Assad for breaking his promises to abide by the Annan plan.
"[Mr. Annan's] mission could never have succeeded so long as the Assad regime continuously broke its pledges to implement the six-point plan and persisted in using horrific violence against its own people," said Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N.
Syria disputed such characterizations and voiced sorrow at the resignation.
"Syria has expressed and proven its total commitment to the Annan plan and cooperated with the observers," Syria's Foreign Ministry said. "The countries seeking to destabilize Syria are the ones that impeded and continue to impede the mission."
A spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said both the U.N. and the Arab League were seeking a replacement for Mr. Annan.
When Mr. Annan took up the assignment on March 1, a year into the conflict, neither he nor the international community held illusions that the job would be easy. "I accepted this task, which some called 'Mission Impossible,'" he said in Geneva. He arranged a cease-fire that was due to take effect April 12. It unraveled within days.
Mr. Annan's efforts were probably doomed from the start because the international six-point plan was too little, too late, said Anthony Cordesman, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
"I don't believe that Kofi Annan can be blamed for hoping that Assad might have behaved differently," Mr. Cordesman said. "But the fact is that this entire effort came late. The whole idea that observers could keep the peace was very, very optimistic from the start."
A mounting feud between the West and Russia has provided the backdrop to Mr. Annan's efforts.
Western diplomats accuse Russia of backing a serial human-rights abuser in Damascus and of falsely claiming the West is planning military intervention in Syria.
The West had "fanned the flames of extremists and terrorist groups" in pursuit of "their own geopolitical designs that have nothing to do with the Syrian people, which has led to tragic consequences," Vitaly Churkin, Russia's U.N. ambassador, said after Moscow vetoed the latest Security Council bid to engineer a political transition.
Mr. Churkin said Thursday that Moscow also regrets Mr. Annan's decision to step down. He said he was encouraged by Mr. Ban's search for a replacement.
In a statement Friday on the website of China's Foreign Ministry, spokesman Hong Lei said Chinese officials "understand the difficulties of Annan's mediation work, and respect his decision."
China, which has positively cited Mr. Annan's efforts as an alternative to more stern measures pressed by the U.S., reiterated that it believes "the fundamental solution for Syria is for the international community to adhere to a political solution," Mr. Hong said.
—Nour Malas in Damascus, Dion Nissenbaum in Washington and Laurence Norman in Brussels contributed to this article.Write to Joe Lauria at [email protected], Margaret Coker at [email protected] and Farnaz Fassihi at [email protected]