West calls on Damascus to stop bloodshed; urges UNSC to act

West calls on Damascus to stop bloodshed; urges UNSC to act  An activist with the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says that Syrian forces have publicly executed 22 activists in a Damascus suburb, Rankus, and arrested about 600 people. The opposition group says the suburb had been under siege since Sunday, when forces backed by tanks pushed into the region.
Syria's Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC) also claimed four people have been killed so far today by security forces. They say three people were killed in Rankous, in Damascus suburbs, and one person was killed in Homs.
The United States and European Union called on the Syrian government to “end violence immediately” and allow the prompt entry of international rights observers and journalists, in a joint statement issued in Washington.
And at the United Nations in New York, the United States and Germany led Western calls for the divided UN Security Council to act against Syria following the UN report.
 The US and its European allies have already condemned the rare double veto by Russia and China.
 “It is past time for the Security Council to take much more decisive action with respect to Syria,” said US ambassador Susan Rice. The Council cannot “stand idly by,” added Germany’s UN envoy Peter Wittig.
Syrian activists told Al Arabiya that regime forces killed 21 more civilians across the country on Monday.
The 15-member council was split last month by a European-drafted resolution condemning President Bashar Al-Assad’s crackdown. Russia and China vetoed the resolution, while Brazil, India, South Africa and Lebanon abstained.
 But a report by a UN human rights commission, which said crimes against humanity had been ordered by the “highest levels” of Assad’s government, and the Arab League decision to order sanctions have strengthened the calls for action.
 But Rice said that with the Arab League sanctions and the “now well-documented atrocities” outlined in the UN report “we think it is time to revisit the question of what might be possible here in New York.”
 Wittig called the Arab League sanctions “historic.” “The council here cannot stand idly by regarding what the regional organisation has said so strongly. We think the council should take up that decision and endorse it and reinforce it,” he told reporters.
 Rice and Wittig said informal talks on possible action would soon start, according to AFP.
Because of the internal divisions, the Security Council has so far only agreed a statement, with less moral weight, on the violence.
 The 193 member U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution last week deploring the violence.
 And rights groups also stepped up demands for Security Council action following the new U.N. report on killings and arrests in Syria since mid-March. The UN says more than 3,500 people have been killed.
 Amnesty International called on the Security Council to refer the case to the International Criminal Court, order an arms embargo and freeze the assets of Assad and his associates.
 “Continued inaction by the Security Council will not only allow the commission with impunity of more human rights violations in Syria, but embolden present and future violators,” said an Amnesty statement.
 Human Rights Watch said the UN Human Rights Council must refer the Syria case to the UN Security Council and call for it “to impose targeted sanctions and refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court.”
 Investigators from the Independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria held state officials responsible for murder, rape and torture, in their crackdown on protesters since March.
 The panel interviewed 223 victims and witnesses, including defectors from President Assad’s security forces who told of shoot-to-kill orders against demonstrators and cases of children being tortured to death. The report stated that more than 250 children were killed in the violence.
 “The commission believes that orders to shoot and otherwise mistreat civilians originated from policies and directives issued at the highest levels of the armed forces and the government,” the panel said in its report.
 Chairman Paulo Pinheiro told reporters: “Members of the Syrian army and security forces have committed crimes against humanity in their repression of a largely civilian population in the context of a peaceful protest movement.
Damascus meanwhile lashed out at the Arab League for ignoring “terrorists” on Syrian territory in its decision to impose crippling sanctions.
 The “Arab sanctions are a declaration of economic war on Syria,” Muallem told reporters, to whom he showed the video depicting what he described as a mass grave.
 “I apologise for these horrific images, but at the same time I offer them to the Arab League ministerial committee members who still continue to refuse the presence of these armed groups,” said Muallem.
 “The Arabs don’t want to admit the presence in Syria of groups of armed terrorists who are committing these crimes, abductions and attacks on public places,” he said.
 Muallem called for dialogue to bring about national reconciliation, saying Syria was ready to accept Russia, its traditional ally, as a mediator.
 Earlier, tens of thousands of pro-regime demonstrators thronged Sabaa Bahrat Square in Damascus to protest the Arab League sanctions.
 They waved Syrian flags and the colors of Russia and China, which vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution against Assad’s regime last month.
 The Arab League approved the sweeping sanctions on Sunday, over the Assad government’s crackdown on anti-regime protests -- the first time the bloc has enforced punitive measures of such magnitude on one of its own members.
 Measures include an immediate ban on transactions with Damascus and the central bank and a freeze on Syrian government assets in Arab countries.
 They also bar Syrian officials from visiting Arab countries and call for a suspension of all flights to Arab states to be implemented on a date to be set next week.
 Assad’s regime has already been subjected to a raft of Western sanctions, led by the United States and European Union
Diplomats in Brussels said the EU was set to tighten its measures even further, targeting Syria’s oil and financial sectors to deprive the regime of more sources of funding.
 EU foreign ministers meeting on Thursday would ban exports of energy industry equipment, trading in Syrian bonds and selling of software that could be used to monitor dissidents, among other financial measures.
 Arab nations wanted to avert a repeat of what happened in Libya, where a UN Security Council resolution led to NATO air strikes. Sheikh Hamad warned fellow Arabs that the West could intervene in Syria if it felt the League was not serious.
 British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the Arab League sanctions demonstrated that “the regime’s repeated failure to deliver on its promises will not be ignored,” Reuters reported.
 France said it wanted Syria’s powerful and critical neighbour Turkey to join an EU foreign ministers’ conference to discuss further measures. Paris has proposed a secure humanitarian corridor linking Syria to Turkey.
Assad’s regime is counting on support from neighbors Iraq and Lebanon, which voted against the sanctions at the 22-member Arab League along with Yemen.
“We do not agree with these sanctions and we will not go along with them,” said Lebanese Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour, according to Reuters.
 Hezbollah, the Shiite group that dominates Lebanon’s government, denounced the sanctions as “shameful” and a “dangerous precedent.” The Arab bloc was becoming a tool for the Americans, it warned.
 Assad, who inherited power from his father in 2000, said in an interview this month that he would continue the crackdown and blamed the unrest on outside pressure to “subjugate Syria.”
Russia urged an end to “ultimatums” against its Middle East ally Syria as Turkey said it did not want to consider a military option for intervention in Syria but that it was ready for any scenario.
“Right now, the most important thing is to stop acting by means of ultimatums and try to move toward political dialogue,” Interfax quoted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying.
Moscow then strongly criticised the course of the campaign and was particularly angered by an arms drop to Libyan opposition forces that was confirmed by France.Russia accused NATO of breaking the spirit of the U.N. resolution by picking sides in the Libya conflict and openly backing the opposition
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, meanwhile, said on Tuesday that Turkey did not want to consider a military option for intervention in Syria but that it was ready for any scenario.
In an interview with the television broadcaster Kanal 24, Davutoglu said on Syria that a regime which tortures its own people had no chance of survival.
“If the oppression continues, Turkey is ready for any scenario. We hope that a military intervention will never be necessary. The Syrian regime has to find a way of making peace with its own people,” he said.
Turkey said Tuesday it is set to announce further sanctions on Syria.