Syria 'ready to discuss' Assad going as fighting rages

Members of the Free Syrian Army shoot at a nearby government army position A Syrian minister held out the prospect Tuesday that embattled President Bashar al-Assad could leave power as part of a negotiated settlement to the increasingly ferocious conflict. The surprise comments by a Syrian

envoy visiting Moscow emerged after Russia warned the West against meddling in Syria in the wake of US President Barack Obama's warning to Damascus over its chemical weapons arsenal.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with reporters after meeting the Syrian delegation, he stated: "There are quite a few opponents of such a movement towards national reconciliation, both inside and outside Syria, so chances are far from being 100 percent but they do exist."
In Syria itself, at least 128 people were killed nationwide, among them 81 civilians, monitors said, reporting relentless shelling and fighting across swathes of the main battleground of Aleppo as well as around the capital.
Activists reported Syrian troops backed by tanks stormed an upscale Damascus neighbourhood on Wednesday, killing at least 11 suspected rebels.
They said the attack came after regime forces shelled the area with mortars soon after dawn.
An activist, who only wanted to be identified by the name Bassam, said that as many as 22 tanks stormed the Kafar Soussa neighbourhood with about 20 soldiers on foot behind each one.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 12 were killed by regime forces shelling and shooting in Kafar Soussa.
It was not immediately clear why government forces stormed Kafar Soussa, but there has been a dramatic spike in fighting in Damascus over the past month.
"As far as his resignation goes -- making the resignation itself a condition for holding dialogue means that you will never be able to reach this dialogue," Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil said after talks in Moscow.
But he added: "Any problems can be discussed during negotiations. We are even ready to discuss this issue."
According to political sources in Damascus, Jamil was sent to Moscow to discuss a possible plan for presidential elections in Syria in which all candidates would be allowed to stand, including Assad.
The exiled opposition umbrella group the Syrian National Council said it was studying the formation of a transitional government, but did not elaborate on whether it could include regime figures.
The West has long demanded Assad's departure, accusing him of butchering his own people during a 17-month conflict that began as a peaceful uprising but has deteriorated into a brutal fight between regime forces and armed rebels.
Syria's traditional allies Russia and China have blocked UN resolutions on the conflict, rejecting what they see as foreign attempts at regime change but despite vetoing of resolutions, other UN Security Council members are find ways around the rejection of foreign intervention. Following the UK's lead last week, France has also pledged to supply Non-lethal weapons and equiptment to the Free Syrian Army,  Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said Wednesday: “On the military level, what we have done is we have responded to a request by the Syrian National Council and the Syrian resistance to provide a certain number of non-lethal elements... means of communication and protection.” 

Russia warned foreign powers of involvement in the conflict after US President Obama threatened that Chemical weapon use by Syria would constitute a "red line", Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated: "The need to strictly adhere to the norms of international law ... and not to allow their violation."

  The Prime Minister of France made clear that there was no chance of becoming directly involved in military action in Syria without U.N. backing: “We have the example of Iraq where George Bush alone decided to go to war. We were opposed and we were proved right. It ended in chaos.”

Activists say more than 23,000 people have been killed since March 2011, while the UN puts the death toll at 17,000 and says hundreds of thousands more have fled or been made homeless in a major humanitarian crisis.
 On the ground, heavy shelling was reported across many parts of Aleppo, including an area where a Japanese journalist was killed in gunfire on Monday, while warplanes bombarded the northern town of Marea, activists said.
The rebel Free Syrian Army said it controlled almost two thirds of Aleppo, where major fighting first erupted a month ago, but a security source in Damascus rejected the claims.

A top FSA commander, Colonel Abdel Jabbar al-Okaidi, said the rebels now controlled 60 percent of Aleppo, the now battered manufacturing hub that was largely spared from fighting until a month ago.
 "The people are with us," he said. "How else do you think we could have lasted a month?"
But a security source in Damascus dismissed the claims as "completely false."
"The terrorists are not advancing, it is the army that is making slow progress," he said, but added: "Reinforcements from both sides are heading to Aleppo. It is a war that will last a long time."
The relentless fighting has triggered a mass exodus and left another 2.5 million in need of aid inside the country, creating what a US State Department official said was one of the worst crises in the world today,
"It's like nothing I've seen in any conflict I've ever been involved in, the level of attacks against people simply trying to provide humanitarian assistance," said Mark Bartolini, director of the office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance.
Activists also reported troops had stormed a town near Damascus, torching homes and shops, while helicopters and warplanes strafed several suburbs of the capital, which the regime claimed to have largely retaken last month.
The death of Japanese female reporter Mika Yamamoto, 45, brought to four the number of foreign journalists killed since the uprising erupted, while a number of Syrian journalists have also died.
The FSA also said that a Palestinian journalist and a Turkish cameraman with Arabic-language Al-Hurra television had been seized by pro-government militia in Aleppo, but this could not be independently confirmed.
The conflict spilled over again into neighbouring Lebanon, with five dead in clashes on Tuesday between pro- and anti-Damascus regime supporters in the northern port city of Tripoli, security officials said.