Paris Says Annan Plan Must Be Made 'Obligatory', London to Press Moscow
France plans to ask the United Nations Security Council to make U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's Syria ceasefire plan mandatory, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Wednesday, as British Foreign Secretary William Hague said that Syria was "on the edge of a collapse."
Fabius called on fellow Security Council members to "take recourse to Chapter Seven (of the U.N. charter) to make the measures in the Annan plan obligatory."
He told a press conference: "We are working on that and we hope that measure will be put in place quickly."
The U.N. Charter's Chapter Seven allows measures to be imposed on a country under penalty of sanctions or the use of force.
"We even heard today China expressing its deep concern. So the Security Council must now step up a gear, and place under Chapter Seven, that is to say make obligatory, the terms of the Annan plan or face very tough sanctions," he said.
"I remind you that the Annan plan calls notably for an end to violence, the withdrawal of the army from cities, bringing in humanitarian aid, that is everything that will allow the beginning of the political transition in Syria and the departure of Bashar al-Assad," Fabius said.
Meanwhile, Hague said that Syria was "on the edge of a collapse" and pledged to urge Russia to use its influence over Damascus.
Hague is in Kabul for a conference focused on the future of Afghanistan, but said he would use meetings with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to press him on Syria.
Russia is a long-term ally of Syria and has refused to stop supplying arms to President Bashar Assad's regime, which is engaged in a bloody fight against an uprising that erupted in March 2011.
"Syria is on the edge of a collapse or of a deadly sectarian civil war. Of course there is room for debate about what constitutes a full civil war," Hague told reporters in Kabul.
"Already there are many characteristics of that, but what we're trying to say when I say that is that it's on the edge of something even worse."
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday accused Moscow of supplying Syria with attack helicopters, prompting an angry Russian response.
Moscow has taken some steps in the past month to distance itself personally from Assad, but has insisted that it will continue supplying weapons to Syria under contracts that see Russia ship about $1 billion in weapons per year.
Russia came under fierce criticism from Western and Arab countries for vetoing two U.N. Security Council resolutions that would have sanctioned Assad for his use of force.
Monitors say more than 14,100 people have been killed in the 15-month uprising against the Assad regime.
Hague said it was in Russia's own interests to support the peace plan proposed by former U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan.
Source: Agence France Presse
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