Russia to send monitors to Syria
Russia has announced it will dispatch monitors to Syria. The announcement was made by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who said the monitors will come from staff currently deployed in the Golan Heights.
Following his meeting in Moscow with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, Lavrov said that “Russia, among others, has been invited by the UN Secretariat to dispatch its observers with the Golan Heights contingent to oversee the Syrian ceasefire. We have given our consent.”
Lavrov also singled out the USA by saying, “The United States and other countries who have strong contacts with different fractions of the Syrian opposition should stop putting the blame on Russia and China and make a fair attempt to pull their levers in order to stop the bloodshed.”
Lavrov repeated Russia’s condition that the planned ceasefire in Syria crafted by Arab League envoy Kofi Annan must happen simultaneously with the arrival of the UN monitors in the country.
The Russians have called for “an immediate ceasefire by all sides however Arab observers say that Syrian government forces shelled a village in northern Aleppo province today in spite of the ceasefire deadline.
Meanwhile Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan charged Syria with shelling a Syrian refugee camp inside Turkey, calling the action a “clear violation” of their borders. That shelling wounded at least four Syrians and two Turkish citizens.
