You're reading: Diplomats pressure Syria as top general defects

PARIS — The United States and its international allies called Friday for new, global sanctions against President Bashar Assad's regime, stepping up the pressure after the defection of a top general dealt a major blow to the Syrian leader.

Washington urged countries around the world to demand that Russia and China force Assad to leave power.

Syrian
Brig. Gen. Manaf Tlass, a member of the elite Republican Guards and a
son of a former defense minister, abandoned Assad’s regime, according to
Western officials. It was the highest profile departure in 16 months of
bloodshed that activists say has killed more than 14,000 people.

The
uprising in Syria began in March 2011 with peaceful protests calling
for Assad’s ouster but has become increasingly militarized as the
opposition took up arms to fight a brutal government crackdown. Military
defections also have been on the rise.

French Foreign Minister
Laurent Fabius said Tlass had defected and was en route to France, where
he has a sister and where world diplomats met Friday to bolster the
Syrian opposition. Later, Fabius backtracked, saying he was not sure of
Tlass’ final destination.

A member of Syria’s opposition National
Council, Hassem Hashimi, described Tlass as a powerful figure in the
Assad regime. “The defection of Tlass will encourage a lot of similar
people to defect as well,” he told The Associated Press in Paris.

U.S.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton joined senior officials from
about 100 other countries in Paris to win wider support for a Syrian
transition plan unveiled last week by U.N. mediator Kofi Annan. Joined
by America’s allies, she called for “real and immediate consequences for
non-compliance, including sanctions,” against the Assad regime.

But
with neither Moscow nor Beijing in attendance, much remained dependent
on persuading the two reluctant U.N. veto-wielding powers to force Assad
into abiding by a cease-fire and the transition strategy. Clinton urged
governments around the world to direct their pressure toward Russia and
China as well.

“What can every nation and group represented here
do?” Clinton asked. “I ask you to reach out to Russia and China, and to
not only urge but demand that they get off the sidelines and begin to
support the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people.”

“I don’t
think Russia and China believe they are paying any price at all —
nothing at all — for standing up on behalf of the Assad regime,” she
added. “The only way that will change is if every nation represented
here directly and urgently makes it clear that Russia and China will pay
a price. Because they are holding up progress, blockading it. That is
no longer tolerable.”

Britain’s foreign secretary, William Hague,
said, “We don’t rule out any option for the future because it is
deteriorating. It is a very grave situation. It is a murdering regime,
so we want to see a peaceful transition. But we are not ruling anything
out.”

Diplomats urged the fractured Syrian opposition to unite.

Several
rounds of international sanctions so far have done little to stop the
bloodshed. This time the United States is hoping for sanctions that have
more of an impact.

But Syrian rebels say sanctions aren’t working
and want quick military action. New violence in Syria led many
activists to dismiss the importance of the Paris meeting. Anti-regime
activists say Syrian forces have killed at least 25 people, arrested
scores more and torched dozens of homes while seizing the northern city
of Khan Sheikhoun from rebels.

At the Paris conference, opposition
member Hashimi called for a no-fly zone to prevent military forces from
“flying over defected soldiers and civilians and bombarding them.”

“We’re
sick of meetings and deadlines. We want action on the ground,” said
activist Osama Kayal, speaking via Skype from an area near Khan
Sheikhoun.

In Paris, Burhan Ghalioun, former leader of the Syrian National Council, explained his frustration after the conference.

“I
am not satisfied at all because the Syrians are not waiting for press
communiques. What preoccupies the Syrians today is the way we can stop
the massacre. Every day there are 100, 130, 150 victims and the people
only think about that,” he said. “They want action, they want measures
and practical mechanism to stop the killings.”

But military
intervention is not on the immediate horizon. U.S. officials say they
are focusing on economic pressure, and the Obama administration says it
won’t intervene militarily or provide weapons to the Syrian rebels for
what it considers to be an already too-militarized conflict.

Any
international mandate for military intervention would almost certainly
be blocked by Russia and Moscow in the U.N. Security Council.

U.S.
officials say a U.N. resolution could be introduced next week, but one
that only seeks further economic pressure on Assad’s government. Even
the chances for that action are unclear, with Russia and China
effectively watering down Annan’s blueprint for transition at a
conference in Geneva last weekend. That plan granted both Assad and the
opposition veto over any interim government candidate they oppose.

The
opposition expressed some optimism about the reported defection of
Tlass, who was one of the most important Sunni figures in Syria’s
Alawite-dominated regime.

As the son of longtime Defense Minister
Mustafa Tlass, he was a member of the Syrian Baath Party aristocracy,
part of a privileged class that flourished under the Assad dynasty.

His
father and Assad’s father, Hafez, had been close friends since their
days in the Syrian military academy in Homs and became even closer after
being posted to Cairo in the late 1950s when Egypt and Syria merged
into the United Arab Republic — a union that lasted three years. After
Hafez Assad rose to power in the early 1970s, Mustafa Tlass became
defense minister and the Syrian president’s most trusted lieutenant.

When
Hafez died of a heart attack in 2000, Tlass helped engineer Bashar’s
succession to the presidency and guided the inexperienced young doctor.
Tlass was the leader of a coterie of old regime figures that critics
blamed for reining in moves to liberalize the Syrian regime.