Iranian Ship

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Iranian Ship

China accused on Monday the Western countries of stirring civil war in Syria, while two Iranian ships docked in a Syrian port, raising tensions in the region, as the president Bashar al-Assad presses on with the crackdown against the population which has been protesting against his rule for the last eleven months.
The accusation formulated by China comes at a time when the regime in Damascus is under a lot of international pressure, especially after the United Nations General Assembly passed last Thursday the resolution Russia and China opposed in the Security Council.
The resolution was adopted with 137 votes in favor, 12 votes against and 17 abstentions, was put forward by Egypt and drafted by Saudi Arabia on behalf of the Arab states. There was no veto but the vote has only a symbolic value, since it is not legally binding.
By the resolution, the president of Syria Bashar al-Assad is required to step down and hand power over to the deputy, to end violence and to return to negotiations. The resolution also speaks of establishing a government that would call snap elections.
Russia and China blocked the resolution in the Security Council on February 4, and voted against it now. Even so, Susan Rice, US ambassador to the United Nations said that by the vote in the UN the international community sent a very clear message to Damascus.
The resolution condemns the crackdown on the people of Syria and demands the Security Council to dispatch an envoy to Damascus. The United Nations acknowledges that more than 5,400 people were killed during the 11 months of crackdown.
The Russian ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin said that the resolution reflected the worrying trend toward the development in Syria, and attempt to isolate the Syrian leadership, to reject any contact with it and to impose an exterior solution for the crisis.
The Arab countries have rejected the amendments formulated by Russia, which wanted the blame for what was going on in Syria to be spread evenly to both the government and the opposition, and opposed any sort of sanctions. These amendments were the reason behind the Russian veto twice in the UN Security Council, the first resolution foiled being last October.
While the ambassadors of Egypt and Great Britain expressed their belief that the resolution should send Assad the message that time has come for him to talk to the people, and to listen to them, the Syrian ambassador called the action of the Arab League “shameful.”
China dispatched an envoy on Saturday to Damascus and send him the support for a plan to hold a referendum on constitutional changes next Sunday. This referendum had been promised by the embattled Syrian president for a long time and is seem as a means to ease the tension in the society.
The Western countries and the Syrian opposition rejected the referendum as a joke, saying that free elections can not be held amid brutal repression.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov visited himself Syria in an attempt to bring the president to the negotiation table, and he promised that Russia would act as a mediator. Some highly-ranked intelligence services officials in Russia also disclosed that a Western force task was already operating in Syria helping the rebels.
On Saturday, two Iranian military ships docked in Tartous, a port where they were expected to arrive in order to train the Syrian navy under an agreement signed two years ago.
Speaking about them, the Iranian Defense Minister said that the two ships went through the channel of Suez and that it was the right of their country to have a presence in the international waters.
Speaking of the two Iranian ships, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor said that Assad has always been supported by Iran and Hezbollah, and added that Russia and China gave him a “license to kill.”
The deputy PM said that Iran was doing all it could to prevent the Syrian regime from collapsing. The Western countries rule out any Libya-like scenario, because, in the words of U.S. general Martin Dempsey, “Syria is not Libya,” having a more sophisticated and capable army, a pile of biological and chemical weapons, and a fragmented opposition.
A “Friends of Syria” committee was created and its first reunion will be on Friday, with the aim of applying pressure on the regime in Damascus. France, which will attend the meeting, is about to propose that humanitarian corridors be made toward the cities where the people were crushed by the governmental troops, especially those in the central cities of Homs, Hama, Daraa, where the military has been storming the cities for the last few weeks.

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