China’s special envoy to Syria is expected to press authorities for a ceasefire even as Beijing remains firmly opposed to any foreign intervention in the conflict.
Li Huaqing, a former Chinese ambassador to Syria, will meet Syrian government officials during his two-day visit. He is not expected to meet figures from the opposition seeking to overthrow authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad.
China has remained a key Syrian ally throughout the 11-month uprising against Assad. As international condemnation of the deadly crackdown on dissent has grown, China and Russia have protected Syria from condemnation by the UN Security Council.
A senior Russian diplomat said today that Moscow was remaining firm in its policy on the Syria crisis and urging the West to press the Syrian opposition to stop fighting Dr Assad’s regime.
Moscow last month blocked a UN Security Council resolution against Damascus and accused the west of fuelling the conflict by backing the opposition.
Deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters that “we are deeply convinced that we are right” and that the opposition should be urged to renounce violence.
German diplomats had urged Moscow to rethink its stance on Syria after Vladimir Putin’s victory in Sunday’s presidential election.
Both countries fear such a resolution could lead to military intervention against Dr Assad, as it did last year against Muammar Gadafy in Libya.
The Syrian regime agreed yesterday to allow visits by two other prominent international emissaries it had previously rebuffed - former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, the new special envoy to Syria, and UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos.
Mr Annan is to reach Damascus on Saturday representing the UN and the Arab League. Baroness Amos is to arrive tomorrow and leave on Friday. Baroness Amos said the aim of her visit is “to urge all sides to allow unhindered access for humanitarian relief workers so they can evacuate the wounded and deliver essential supplies”.
In a message welcoming her visit, Syria said she would be able to visit “some areas” - making it unlikely she will see some of the areas hardest-hit by Dr Assad’s forces, such as the Baba Amr neighbourhood in Homs, which government forces took from rebels last week after a month-long siege.
Activists say hundreds were killed in nearly four weeks of government shelling before troops seized the area. Syrian authorities have not allowed Red Cross aid teams to enter the area since then, despite assurances they would be able to. Activists accuse the regime of trying to hide the area’s destruction.
The UN says more than 7,500 people have been killed since Syria’s uprising started in March 2011 with protests calling for Dr Assad’s removal.
Last night, US senator John McCain said the United States should lead an international effort to protect key population centres in Syria through air strikes on President Bashar al-Assad's forces.
"The ultimate goal of air strikes should be to establish and defend safe havens in Syria, especially in the north, in which opposition forces can organise and plan their political and military activities against Assad," Mr McCain, an influential Republican who lost the White House to Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential race, said in a Senate floor speech.
There was no immediate comment from the Obama administration on the comments by Mr McCain, the first US senator to urge a US military strike on Mr Assad's forces.
The administration has so far resisted being pulled into the crossfire in Syria. The White House did say that "the tragic situation is Syria" was one of the matters discussed last night in an Oval Office meeting between Mr Obama and visiting Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Mr McCain has previously called for efforts to arm the Syrian opposition. But he said that the help Syrian rebels needed most urgently was "relief from Assad's tank and artillery sieges in the many cities that are still contested" in Syria.
The battered city of Homs is "lost for now," but other cities are not, Mr McCain said.
"Time is running out. Assad's forces are on the march," Mr McCain said.
The only realistic way to stop them, he said, was with foreign air power, adding that this would require the U to "suppress" Syrian air defences in at least part of the country.
The Obama administration has to date stressed seeking a political solution to the Syrian crisis. Last month, however, the White House said it did not rule out "additional measures" if a political solution turned out to be impossible.
Mr Assad faces growing pressure for blocking humanitarian aid and the broadcast of pictures that apparently show torture victims at a military hospital in the city of Homs.
The secretly shot video footage, which could not be independently verified, was broadcast last night by Channel 4.
It showed wounded, blindfolded men chained to beds. A rubber whip and electrical cable lay on a table in one of the wards. Some patients had injuries that appeared to show they had been severely beaten.
Channel 4 said it had obtained the footage from a military hospital in Homs, filmed covertly by an employee and smuggled out by a French photojournalist.
Agencies