No hope Assad will leave, Russian says

Insistence that exit precede talks will lead to more lives lost, he states

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (left) meets Saturday in Moscow with U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who warned of the danger of “panic in Damascus.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (left) meets Saturday in Moscow with U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who warned of the danger of “panic in Damascus.”

— Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said Saturday that there was “no possibility” of persuading President Bashar Assad to leave Syria, leaving little hope for a breakthrough in the standoff. He also said opposition leaders’ insistence on Assad’s departure as a precondition for peace talks would come at the cost of “more and more lives of Syrian citizens” in a conflict that has already killed tens of thousands.

Moscow has made a muscular push for a political solution in recent days, sending signals that the Kremlin, one of Assad’s most important allies, sees a pressing need for political change. As an international consensus forms around the notion of a transitional government, it has been snagged on the thorny question of what role, if any, Assad would occupy in it.

But after talks in Moscow on Saturday with Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations and Arab League envoy on Syria, Lavrov said Russia could not press Assad to give up power. Lavrov has said Russia “isn’t in the business of regime change,” but his characterization of Assad’s stance Saturday sounded more definitive.

“He has repeatedly said, both publicly and privately, including during his meet- ing with Lakhdar Brahimi not long ago, that he has no plans to go anywhere, that he will stay in his post until the end, that he will, as he says, protect the Syrian people, Syrian sovereignty and so forth,” Lavrov said. “There is no possibility of changing this position.”

There have been evident changes in the long standoff over Syria in recent weeks, as Russia acknowledged that government forces were losing territory and distanced itself from Assad.

In televised remarks, President Vladimir Putin said Russian leaders “are not preoccupied by the fate of Assad’s regime” and that after 40 years of rule by one family, “undoubtedly there is a call for change.”

But Moscow has watched the recent Arab uprisings with mounting worry, arguing that the West was unleashing dangerous turbulence by supporting popular rebellions, and it has vehemently opposed any international intervention in Syria as a matter of principle.

Developments on the battlefield have accelerated the pace of diplomacy.

Brahimi, an Algerian statesman who is viewed sympathetically in Moscow, recommended last week that a transitional government be established, perhaps within months, and that it should rule Syria until elections could be held.

Like Russia, Brahimi hopes to arrange a political settlement on the basis of an international agreement reached last summer in Geneva, which envisages a transitional government and a peacekeeping force. But the Geneva document does not address Assad’s fate, nor does it invoke tough sanctions against the Syrian government under U.N. Chapter VII, which authorizes economic measures and, if necessary, military action.

On Saturday, Brahimi said it might be necessary to “make some small changes to the Geneva agreement.”

“Nonetheless,” he added, “I consider that it is a wonderful basis for the continuation of the political process.” He warned that if a political solution was not possible, Syria would be overrun by violence, like Somalia.

“The problem could grow to such proportions that it could have a substantial effect on our future, and we cannot ignore this,” Brahimi said.

Brahimi warned that the country’s civil war could plunge the entire region into chaos by sending hundreds of thousands of refugees into neighboring nations, but his talks in Moscow produced no sign of progress toward settling the crisis.

The envoy warned that “if you have a panic in Damascus and if you have 1 million people leaving Damascus in a panic, they can go to only two places — Lebanon and Jordan,” and those countries may not be able to endure half a million refugees each.

After a trip to Damascus last week and talks with Russian officials, Brahimi said a truce is the country’s only way out.

“If the only alternative is really hell or a political process, then we have got all of us to work ceaselessly for a political process,” Brahimi said.

Russia has set the stage for forward momentum, announcing a gathering in mid-January among the United States, Russia and Brahimi to discuss Syria.

Moscow may see these talks as a chance to rebuild its prestige in the Arab world, where Russia’s historically strong alliances have been badly damaged by the standoff over Syria. Lavrov bristled Saturday when a reporter from an Arabic news channel asked him to comment on criticism that Russia is “a participant in the Syrian conflict” because it continued to fulfill weapons contracts with Damascus after the outbreak of violence.

The accusation, Lavrov said, “is so far from the truth that there’s no way to comment on it.” He also said the opposition was receiving a far more deadly flow of weapons and aid.

“We aren’t providing the Syrian regime with any offensive weapons or weapons that could be used in a civil war,” Lavrov said. “And we have no leverage over what the regime has got since the Soviet times.”

The leader of the main opposition coalition, Sheik Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib, responded coolly to an overture Friday from Russia, saying Moscow should publicly apologize for its pro-government position.

He also refused to meet with Russian leaders in Moscow, saying a meeting was possible only in an Arab country.

Lavrov said Saturday that he would agree to such a meeting but responded to Khatib’s remarks with an equally chilly response.

“I know that Mr. Khatib is probably not very experienced in politics,” he said. “If he aspires to the role of a serious politician, he will nonetheless understand that it is in his own interests to hear our analysis directly from us.”

Anti-Assad activists reported intense fighting and a high number of casualties Saturday in the central city of Homs, where, they said, government troops had stormed and bombed the Deir Ba’alba neighborhood. The Londonbased Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had received reports of deaths in Homs but could not confirm them because communications with the area had been cut off.

Another opposition group, the Local Coordination Committees, said as many as hundreds of people had been killed, but offered no supporting evidence.

Also, Cairo airport officials said a flight that was supposed to stop in Aleppo before continuing to Damascus flew straight to Damascus “because of the deteriorated security situation” near the Aleppo airport.

It was the first time a flight to Syria’s largest city had been canceled because of fighting near the airport, they said. The Syrian government and its airline did not comment.

Rebels seeking to topple Assad have launched a campaign to seize government airports as a way to cut the regime’s supply lines and strike a blow against its air power, the biggest threat faced by rebel forces.

While the rebels have yet to seize a major airport, they have disrupted traffic at some with heavy machine-gun fire, and flights to Damascus have been canceled because of fighting near its airport.

Syrian airlines is the only carrier still flying to Damascus, running one flight per day, though some officials still consider the trip too risky.

Information for this article was contributed by Ellen Barry of The New York Times; and by Vladimir Isachenkov, Jim Heintz, Ben Hubbard, Maamoun Youssef and Vladimir Isachenkov of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/30/2012

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