UN chief urges ‘wider international discussion’ on Syria

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called for an expansion of international talks on the “future course of actions” regarding the turmoil in Syria. “I want to welcome a wider international discussion on the future course of actions” regarding Syria, Ban said on Sunday. The UN chief made the remarks in a press conference after a meeting with Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the head of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), in the Saudi port city of Jeddah, the OIC headquarters. “Our priority at this time is to help the Syrian people.” The remarks come a day after Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani called on UN-Arab League envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan, to “set a time frame for his mission (in Syria) because it is unacceptable that massacres and bloodshed continue while the mission is ongoing indefinitely.” “We demand the UN Security Council refer the six-point (Annan plan) to Chapter VII so that the international community could assume responsibilities,” said the Qatari premier during the Meeting of Arab Ministerial Committee on Syria in the capital, Doha, on June 2. Ban also stated that the recommendations of the Arab League have been “very important” and that he hoped they “will be discussed by the [UN] Security Council members.” Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter allows the UN Security Council to take necessary measures, including military force, to “maintain or restore international peace and security.” Meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad addressed the newly-elected parliament on Sunday. “At this time, we are facing a war from abroad,” Assad said in the televised speech. “What happened in Houla and elsewhere (in Syria) are brutal massacres which even monsters would not have carried out,” the Syrian president said, referring to the May 25 massacre the in the western town of Houla. The head of the UN observer mission in Syria, Major General Robert Mood said in a briefing via videoconference from Damascus to an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on May 27 that the UN monitors in Houla have reported that 108 people were killed, including 49 children and 34 women. Some Western governments blame Damascus for the massacre. However, on May 31, Brigadier General Qassem Jamal Suleiman, the head of an investigation committee formed by the Syrian government, said the probe into the Houla killings has shown that anti-Damascus armed groups had carried out the massacre to “bring foreign military intervention against the country in any form and way.” President Assad also stated on Sunday that “standing up against the conspiracy is not easy, but we will overcome the obstacles.”