Russia warned that Western and Arab proposals to arm Syria's opposition are a recipe for "carnage" and doomed to fail because the country's disparate rebels will never be able unseat President Bashar al-Assad.
Western and Arab proposals to arm Syria's opposition are a recipe for "carnage" and doomed to fail because the country's disparate rebels will never be able unseat President Bashar al-Assad even if they are armed to the teeth, Russia warned yesterday (Wednesday).
Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, accused members of the Friends of Syria coalition of undermining the chances of a UN-backed peace deal by offering rebel forces incentives to keep fighting.
He issued the warning as the Assad regime stepped up a countrywide assault against the opposition's last remaining strongholds a day after publicly insisting that it had begun to withdraw its troops and tanks from populated areas.
Activists linked to the opposition said that more than 40 people, most of them civilians, were killed as government troops and tanks shelled opposition sympathising towns and cities. There were 21 deaths reported in Homs, the country's most restive city.
At least 120 people are said to have been killed in the past 48 hours during one of the most sustained periods of violence in recent weeks.
The scale of the bloodshed has called into question Assad's commitment to a deal brokered by Kofi Annan, the UN and Arab League special envoy to Syria, which calls for the withdrawal of army units to be completed by next Tuesday.
It also suggests that the regime is intent on capturing as much territory as possible before the truce comes into effect.
While backing Annan's initiative, Western and Arab members of the Friends of Syria, have explored ways of assisting the opposition.
The United States and Britain have both pledged to give the rebels "non-lethal" military assistance, while some Gulf states have announced that they will pay the rebels salaries in the hope of encouraging soldiers still loyal to Assad to defect.
Qatar and Saudi Arabia have gone even further by proposing to arm the rebels directly, a suggestion that Lavrov condemned as futile and dangerous.
"It is clear as day that even if the Syrian opposition is armed to the teeth, it will not be able to defeat the government's army," Russia's Interfax news agency quoted him as saying.
"Instead there will be carnage that lasts many, many years - mutual destruction."
Lavrov chided the Friends of Syria for hypocrisy, saying that offers of support for the rebels only encouraged them to keep fighting. Russia is desperate to see Assad survive, seeing him as the only Arab protector of Moscow's interests in the Middle East.
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