U.S. urges Russia, China to help end Syria violence

PanARMENIAN.Net - The United States urges Russia and China to help convince the Syrian President to end the ongoing violence in the country, said Victoria Nuland, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of State.

Russia and China, the two veto-wielding UN Security Council members, blocked earlier in February a resolution on Syria that called on President Bashar al-Assad to step down.

“We are also reaching out to Russia, to China, to countries that are continuing to protect the Assad regime and encouraging them, even if they don’t agree with us on all of the steps for Syria’s transition, to nonetheless use the influence that they have to convince him to silence his guns, to allow the humanitarian in,” Nuland told a daily press briefing, RIA Novosti reported.

Last week U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attended the “Friends of Syria” conference in Tunisia. The conference participants issued a declaration calling on Damascus to end violence immediately and to endorse the main opposition umbrella group, the Syrian National Council (SNC), as a "credible" voice of opposition.

Delegates from more than 70 countries also called on President Assad to allow humanitarian access and vowed to step up sanctions against the regime.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the conference over the weekend was "unilateral" and did not stimulate peaceful dialogue in the country.