France Says Syria Claim on Peace Plan a 'Flagrant Lie'
France said on Tuesday that Syria was not implementing a U.N. and Arab League-backed peace plan after Damascus said it had started pulling troops out of certain provinces.
The Syrian claim was "a new expression of a flagrant and unacceptable lie" that "shows a degree of impunity against which the international community absolutely must act," foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said.
Valero said the issue would be discussed at the U.N. Security Council in New York and by foreign ministers of the Group of Eight (G8) major economies when they meet this week in Washington.
Under the peace plan it agreed with U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, the Syrian government is supposed to draw back its troops and armor from population centers on Tuesday ahead of a ceasefire on Thursday.
But activists have said that instead of withdrawing, President Bashar Assad's regime was sending even more reinforcements into at least one other rebel stronghold, the besieged city of Rastan in central Homs province.
"We have not seen the beginning of a Syrian undertaking to implement the Annan plan," Valero said.
"The Syrian crisis will be raised (during the G8 meeting) while the regime refuses to stick to its undertakings, makes new unacceptable demands, continues to massacre its own population and violates its neighbor’s sovereignty."
France also condemned what it said was deliberate firing by Syrian forces on a refugee camp in Turkey that wounded four Syrians and two Turkish staff and killed a television cameraman over the border with Lebanon.
"Not satisfied with persecuting its own people, the Damascus regime is attacking neighbor’s territory in complete violation of international law," Valero said.
Some 25,000 Syrian refugees are currently in camps in Turkey's three provinces bordering Syria, after fleeing the crackdown on dissent.
The United Nations says more than 9,000 people have been killed since anti-regime protests broke out in March 2011, while monitors put the number at more than 10,000.
Source: Agence France Presse
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