China against 'outside armed intervention' in Syria

China said Thursday it was firmly opposed to "outside armed intervention" in Syria or "any attempt to forcibly promote regime change", resisting pressure for further action following a new massacre. China's UN envoy Li Baodong told the UN General Assembly that China was committed to playing a "positive and constructive role in finding an early peaceful and proper solution to the Syrian question". According to state news agency Xinhua, he added that all parties should "immediately implement" UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's six-point plan. "We resolutely oppose the solutions to the Syrian crisis through outside armed intervention or any attempt to forcibly promote regime change," Li said. "To maintain the momentum for a political solution to the Syrian question and to avoid the escalation of crisis, the parties concerned inside Syria should immediately implement the relevant Security Council resolutions and the six-point Annan plan." Annan told the UN Security Council that he feared the crisis in Syria would "spiral out of control" unless more pressure is put on President Bashar al-Assad, whose regime launched a deadly crackdown on dissent in March 2011. His remarks came after the reported slaughter of dozens of people by pro-regime militiamen in the village of Al-Kubeir, the second large-scale massacre in a fortnight, and the targeting of UN monitors trying to reach the scene. Li said that the deaths of 108 people last month in the town of Houla, most of them women and children, had "once again shown that there should be no delay to achieve a comprehensive ceasefire and cessation of violence in Syria". Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has vowed there will be no UN Security Council mandate for outside intervention in Syria, indicating Moscow would use its veto to block any military action. Lavrov told reporters on the sidelines of a trip to Kazakhstan by President Vladimir Putin that any military intervention would play into the hands of the opposition and discourage any hope of a negotiated solution. China has twice supported Russia in vetoing UN Security Council resolutions that merely hinted at sanctions against the Assad regime. Annan told the 193-nation General Assembly that it was time to threaten "clear consequences" if Assad does not comply with the peace plan, expressing horror at the latest massacre -- in the village of Al-Kubeir. He called for stronger international action to back his peace plan, which includes demands for Assad to pull troops and guns out of cities and halt violence so that political talks can start. But a cessation of hostilities that officially started on April 12 has now all but collapsed.