US-based Syrian dissidents ask Obama to demand Assad step down

US-based Syrian opposition figures on Tuesday urged President Barack Obama to exert more pressure on the regime in Damascus by calling on President Bashar Al Assad to step down and pressing for more UN sanctions against him.

The Syrian dissidents made their plea in a meeting with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton amid growing US condemnations of President Assad’s continuing crackdown on pro-democracy protests.

Radwan Ziadeh, who headed the united opposition delegation that visited Moscow, for the first time, at the end of June, told reporters that he and other Syrian opposition figures told Ms. Clinton that they need “President Obama to address the Syrian people and ask President Bashar Al Assad to step down immediately.”

Mohammad Alabdalla, another Washington-based Syrian opposition activist, added that a high-profile US call for Mr. Assad to quit power would bring more protesters to Syria’s streets.

Ms. Clinton said last month that Assad had “lost legitimacy” after loyalists attacked the US and French embassies for alleged meddling in internal affairs, but administration officials have stopped short of calling on him to step down.

When asked why Washington was reluctant to call on the Syrian leader to quit power, Mr. Ziadeh said US officials feared the Assad regime would try to fan sectarian flames and spark a civil war.

But “we addressed this concern” and showed that groups of different backgrounds, including Christians, were involved in the protest movement, he said.

“This is actually the great example about the unity of the Syrian people against the sectarian investment that the regime is investing in Syria,” Mr. Ziadeh told reporters.

Listing other demands, Mr. Ziadeh said “we need actually the US to lead at the Security Council to get more sanctions at the UN level,” on top of US and European Union sanctions imposed on President Assad and other members of his regime.

The death toll in Syria’s bloody crackdown on opponents of Mr. Assad in the city of Hama and elsewhere climbed on Tuesday and Russia said it would not oppose a UN resolution to condemn the violence.

Russia, an old ally of Syria, had long resisted any such measure by the UN Security Council, where it holds a veto. The Foreign Ministry in Moscow cautioned that any resolution should refrain from sanctions and other unspecified “pressures.”

Three more civilians were killed in Hama, including two brothers, Khaled and Fateh Kanil, who died when pro-Assad “shabbiha” militiamen fired at their food-laden car, two residents, one of them a doctor, told Reuters by telephone

Consultations at the Security Council on Monday failed to produce agreement on adopting a Western-backed draft resolution condemning Syria or settling for a less binding statement.

The Russian Foreign Ministry’s Middle East and North Africa Department Chief, Sergei Vershinin, said his country was not “categorically” against adopting a UN resolution on Syria.

“If there are some unbalanced items, sanctions, pressure, I think that kind of pressure is bad because we want less bloodshed and more democracy,” he added.

Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad urged India to ignore Western “propaganda” during its month-long presidency of the Security Council, which began on Monday.

“What we expect India to do is not to allow Western countries to use the U.N. as a forum to support terrorism, to support extremism and to support the killings of innocent people,” Mr. Mekdad told India’s CNN-IBN television channel.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights warned Syrian authorities that the world was watching the violence and said those who had violated human rights must be brought to account.

“There is a need for an international, transparent, independent and prompt investigation into the violence, the killings, the excessive use of force, the arbitrary arrests, ill-treatment and torture that the people of Syria have been subjected to,” Navi Pillay said in a statement.

Italy recalled its ambassador from Syria in protest at the “horrible repression of the civilian population” and urged other European Union members to do the same.

The EU formally added five more Syrian officials to an existing list of 29 individuals headed by Assad, whom the 27-nation bloc has targeted with asset freezes and travel bans.

“Today further EU targeted sanctions on Syria come into force. The message is clear and unambiguous: those responsible for the repression will be singled out and held accountable,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague said.