Clinton in Saudi to up pressure on Syrian regime

PanARMENIAN.Net - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was holding talks in Riyadh Friday, March 30 with Saudi leaders as she kicked off a two-country tour aimed at raising pressure on the Syrian regime, the U.S. embassy here said, according to AFP.

The U.S. State Department said earlier this week Clinton would meet Friday in Riyadh with Saudi King Abdullah and Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal.

On Saturday, she is due to meet with ministers of Saudi Arabia's five Gulf Arab neighbours - Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman - before engaging in broader meetings Sunday with Arab, Turkish and Western officials in Istanbul.

The Friends of Syria meeting in Turkey follows the inaugural one Clinton attended in Tunis at the end of February - a response to Western and Arab failure to win Russian and Chinese backing at the UN Security Council.

Aides said Clinton will discuss how to make President Bashar al-Assad comply with a new plan to end the crackdown on a pro-democracy movement, study further sanctions against his regime and consider ways to aid the opposition who will be in Istanbul.

Her visit comes a day after Assad said he would "spare no effort" for the success of UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's six-point peace plan but said the proposal would only work if "terrorist acts" by foreign powers stopped.

The plan by the former UN chief includes a commitment to stop all violence, daily two-hour humanitarian ceasefires and media access to all areas affected by the fighting. It also calls for an inclusive Syrian-led political process, the right to demonstrate, and the release of people detained arbitrarily.