Arab League Calls on Russia to Stop Giving Syria Weapons

The Arab League demanded on Thursday that Russia stop supplying arms to Syria, as a regime onslaught of Homs and its surrounds appeared to stall a Red Cross bid to rescue trapped civilians.

The pan-Arab bloc's deputy secretary general Ahmed Ben Hilli issued the appeal in an interview in which he also called for U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's mandate to be revamped, and for Iran's inclusion in talks on Syria.

"Any assistance to violence must be ceased because when you supply military equipment, you help kill people. This must stop," Hilli was quoted as telling Interfax news agency in comments translated into Russian.

"To make (the Annan) plan work, we need to find a new mechanism and the mandate of the special envoy must be reassessed, so we can be sure that all the sides are observing the plan," he said without elaborating.

He backed Iran joining the Syria Contact Group meeting expected to be held in Geneva on June 30, while saying that Tehran's participation was still at the discussion stage.

"In my view, all the players taking part in the Syrian crisis must be part of this contact group," he was quoted as saying in answer to a question about Iran's participation.

"The main task at the moment is agreeing the agenda of the first meeting. Then a decision will be taken on who will take part in this conference," he added.

Russia has steadfastly resisted Western pleas to help remove Syria's President Bashar Assad from power despite the escalating hostilities that have battered Annan's U.N.-backed peace initiative.

"We believe that nobody has the right to decide for other nations who should be in power and who should not," Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday after a G20 summit in Mexico.