Sarkozy compares Homs to Benghazi

French president Nicolas Sarkozy has compared Syria's Bashar al-Assad's assault on Homs to Col Muammar Gaddafi's attacks on the city of Benghazi. "Bashar al-Assad is lying in a shameful way, he wants to wipe Homs from the map like Gaddafi wanted to wipe Benghazi from the map," Sarkozy told Europe 1 radio. "The solution is the creation of humanitarian corridors so an opposition can exist in Syria," he said. The French president and other Western leaders had cited the Gaddafi regime's attacks on Benghazi as reason for the international community to intervene in Libya. Sarkozy also said that the isolation of Russia and China on Syria "will not last" and that the two countries will eventually join the rest of the international community against Damascus. "The Chinese and the Russians do not like being isolated," he said. "And when we gather the major countries to say 'here is the direction we are going in', with our Arab allies, Russia and China's isolation on the Syria question will not last," Sarkozy said. French foreign minister Alain Juppe will today meet 13 other foreign ministers for talks on Syria in Paris, which France says will send a "strong" call to the regime to abide by a peace plan. Syrian troops continued to pound rebel strongholds on Wednesday, including the flashpoint central city of Homs, as the regime sought to reassure an increasingly sceptical world that it is committed to a week-old ceasefire. Syria has not fully withdrawn troops and heavy weapons from towns, failing to send a "clear signal" about its commitment to peace, UN chief Ban Ki-Moon said on Thursday, underlining Western fears for the week-old truce. In the first progress report since the Security Council passed a resolution on Saturday authorising the deployment of observers, Secretary-General Ban proposed an expanded mission of 300 personnel to monitor a shaky ceasefire between forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and opposition fighters. After more than 10,000 people have been killed in 13 months of fighting, the report will be crucial in determining whether conditions are right for deploying the truce-monitoring mission at a Security Council meeting on Thursday, a day after an advance group of observers were surrounded by protesters against Assad's 12-year rule.