US Closes Embassy in Syria, Russian Envoy Arrives

By Nada Bakri, The New York Times

07 February 12

ussia's foreign minister reported a "very productive visit" on Tuesday in Damascus with Syria's top leaders after flying in for an emergency meeting on the violent 11-month-old political uprising in that country, where thousands of pro-government Syrians lined the streets of the capital waving Russian flags of welcome.

Russia, along with China, vetoed an Arab-backed resolution at the United Nations on Saturday that called on President Bashar al-Assad to delegate some of his powers as part of a plan to defuse the crisis. Rebuffing harsh criticism from the resolution's sponsors and Western critics of Mr. Assad, the Russians insisted that the resolution amounted to outside interference in Syria's affairs.

At the same time, sensitive to the perception that Russia had given Mr. Assad a green light to violently crush his political opponents, the Kremlin dispatched its foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, and Mikhail Fradkov, the head of Moscow's foreign intelligence service, to Syria on Tuesday. The Russians, Mr. Assad's strongest foreign backer, said they had a proposal that could end the crisis but declined to divulge its substance.

"We have had a very productive visit with the leadership of Syria," Mr. Lavrov said, according to Russia's Ria Novosti news service. "We have confirmed our preparedness to facilitate a rapid end to the crisis based on the positions set out in the Arab League initiative. In particular, the president of Syria gave assurance that he is fully committed to an end to violence, no matter its source."

Mr. Lavrov also said that Mr. Assad was prepared to hold talks with representatives of Syria's opposition. "It is clear that efforts for ending the violence should be accompanied by dialogue between political forces," he said. "Today we received confirmation from the president of Syria that he is prepared to cooperate in this effort."

There was no immediate comment on the meeting from Mr. Assad or from the voices of opposition in Syria, who have already made clear they do not trust the government and want Mr. Assad to step down.

Live video broadcast on Ad-Douniya television, a state-controlled channel, showed the Russian envoy's convoy driving along the Mazzeh highway amid cheers of thousands of government supporters. Some carried pictures of President Assad, and others held aloft banners thanking Russia and China for their veto.

The visit came a day after the American government shut its embassy in Damascus, withdrawing Ambassador Robert Ford and the rest of the staff. France said Tuesday that it was withdrawing its ambassador to Damascus for consultations, following similar moves by Britain and Italy. Unlike the United States, their embassies remain open.

Violence has surged the past week in Syria, in particular around the flashpoint city of Homs, Syria's third largest. The government pressed forward with its crackdown on the city for the fourth day, shelling several neighborhoods that have become strongholds of an insurgency made up of army defectors. Activists said that Syrian security forces used tanks and heavy machine guns in a push to recover the rebel-held districts.

The United Nations said in December that more than 5,400 people have been killed since the uprising broke out in March of last year. Activists say hundreds more are believed to have been killed in this week's assault on Homs.

Syria's Interior Ministry said that the assault on Homs would continue until all resistance is defeated, in a sign that the government believes that it can crush the opposition by force. Since the start of the uprising, the government has maintained that it is battling armed groups financed from abroad who have killed thousands of police officers and soldiers.

The government was also pressing ahead with crackdowns in the suburbs of Damascus and a restive region in northern Syria near the town of Idlib. The fighting in the suburbs has driven hundreds, perhaps thousands, to seek refuge in the capital, residents said.

"If we knew things were headed toward war, we would have prepared shelters," said a resident in the hard-hit town of Zabadani, near Damascus, who gave his name as Zein.