U.S. seeks new options on Syria

Obama asks aides for policy alternatives to deal with crisis

BEIJING - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday that President Barack Obama had asked aides to develop new policy options to deal with the deteriorating situation in Syria.

Kerry said that none of the policy options had yet been presented to the White House for a decision.

“He has asked all of us to think about various options that may or may not exist,” Kerry said at a news conference during a visit to China for meetings about regional issues.

“The answer to the question ‘Have they been presented?’ No, they have not,” he said. “But that evaluation, by necessity, given the circumstances, is taking place at this time. And when these options are ripe and when the president calls for it, there will undoubtedly be some discussion about them.”

Kerry’s comments reflect increased concern within the U.S. government and nongovernmental organizations about the escalating humanitarian crisis in Syria. They also reflect frustration that Syrian President Bashar Assad appears to have little interest in negotiating the establishment of a transitional government in which he would not play a role.

Kerry said the number of refugees who have fled Syria increased by 50 percent since October, when the United Nations Security Council issued a nonbinding request that all sides in the conflict facilitate the delivery of food and medicine. The number of Syrians who have been displaced within their country increased by 33 percent over the same period, he said.

“It is clear that the crisis of Syria is growing, not diminishing,” Kerry said. “It has gotten worse, dramatically worse.”

In an oblique criticism of Russia, Kerry said the Security Council’s inability to take stronger action than the nonbinding request reflected “the opposition of certain countries.”

In recent weeks, Britain and other nations have pressed for a new Security Council resolution that would demand that Assad’s government allow besieged communities to have access to international humanitarian aid. But that effort has run into opposition from Russia.

Russian officials on Friday accused the Syrian opposition’s Western backers of focusing solely on “regime change” and said the government would only discuss political transition if its opponents agreed on a joint fight with the government against terrorism.

The opposition delegates have agreed to a compromise agenda that would simultaneously address their top priority - the formation of a transitional governing body - and that of the government, ending violence and terrorism in Syria.

But the government delegates have so far refused, and the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, on Friday said the opposition and its backers appeared solely focused on deposing Assad.

“All they want to talk about is creating a transitional governing body,” Lavrov said.

Kerry said in Beijing that agreeing on a transition government was the sole purpose of the Geneva talks. He said Lavrov had stood beside him several times when Kerry said that was the goal.

“There is no question about what this is about, and any efforts to try to be revisionist or walk back or step away from that frankly is not keeping work or keeping faith with the words that have been spoken and the intent of this conference,” Kerry said.

U.N. officials said Friday that U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi had concluded separate meetings with the two sides, but gave no details, and it was unclear whether there would be more meetings today.

“Unfortunately we have reached a dead end,” said opposition spokesman Louay Safi after Friday’s meetings. “I hope we can still find an opening in that wall,” he added, saying that for now government “belligerence” was making it impossible to forge ahead.

Syria’s deputy foreign minister, Faisal Mekdad, also announced “with deep regret” that the talks were not going anywhere.

In Syria on Friday, a car bomb blew up outside a mosque in a southern, rebel-held village as worshippers were leaving after prayers, anti-government activists said.

Activists provided varying death tolls ranging from 29 to 43 for the explosion in Yadouda. State-run TV confirmed the bombing but said only three people were killed.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which uses a wide network of local activists to track violence in the country, said 32 people were killed, including a child and 10 rebels.

Earlier Friday, the U.N. paused the evacuation of civilians from Homs, a senior U.N. official said, while the government screened military-age men who had left the area.

Matthew Hollingworth, the World Food Program director in Syria, said several dozen men who left Old Homs during earlier evacuations were being held in a school elsewhere in the city and being questioned by Syrian authorities. U.N. officials were present at the school, he said.

Meanwhile, two hazardous-waste disposal companies have been selected to help incinerate the chemicals in Syria’s weapons arsenal, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons announced Friday.

Veolia Environmental Services Technical Solutions LLC (USA), an American subsidiary of Veolia Environnement of France, and Finnish company Ekokem OY AB were awarded contracts after a review of the 14 bids submitted last month.

Information for this article was contributed by Michael R. Gordon, Anne Barnard and Rick Gladstone of The New York Times, and by John Heilprin, Zeina Karam, Mathew Lee, Bassem Mroue and Diaa Hadid of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 7 on 02/15/2014

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