White House officials said the partial cease-fire that has taken hold in Syria is better than no ceasefire, but not enough. Officials said the Syrian government is not fully complying with a plan laid out by former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Syrian government forces have appeared to stop widespread attacks on the opposition. But incidents of violence were reported Thursday, and the government rebuffed demands to return troops to their barracks.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters this is unacceptable. "While there are some signs of a tentative ceasefire holding at this point in time, that is not the same as full implementation of the commitments that the [Bashar al-]Assad regime made 12 days ago, when it said it would implement the Annan plan," he said.
Carney joined with Mr. Annan in saying the Syrian government has failed to implement parts of the agreement brokered by the former U.N. chief.
"Our message is, to the Assad regime: Stop killing your people. Stop the violence," Carney said. "Commit yourself to a ceasefire. Commit yourself fully to implementing the Annan plan. Remove your troops. Withdraw your materiel, your weapons from urban population centers."
Earlier, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad cannot "pick and choose" which parts of the agreement he wants to accept.
She also said Washington supports sending a U.N. mission to Syria to monitor the government's compliance with the Annan plan.
No comments:
Post a Comment