U.S., Russian leaders set to work on their Syria ‘disagreements’

U.S. President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin will discuss differences over what to do about the conflict in Syria at a G20 summit next week, a top U.S. official said Friday.

“Obviously, disagreements persist with regard to Syria, but it will be a good opportunity for the presidents to meet and work it through,” said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, referring to the Mexico talks.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denied that Moscow has been discussing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s departure with Western nations, seemingly hoping to quash reports about a shift in its approach to Syria.

“No such discussions,” about political transition in Syria had taken place, he said, after Nuland spoke Thursday of a “constructive conversation” with the Russians in Kabul on a transition plan modeled on Yemen.

Nuland said she had not meant “to imply any positions on their part.”

But she added on Friday: “We were talking about the general direction that we want to see Syria go, the general principles that the secretary has outlined for a post-Assad transition.

“With regard to our dialogue with the Russians, we are talking about the full spectrum of issues,” she told journalists.

“We are talking about the situation in Syria. We are talking about how we can implement the Kofi Annan plan in all of its elements.”

The six-point plan drawn up by U.N.-Arab-League envoy Kofi Annan includes a Syrian-led process to bring in political transition in Syria, where Assad has unleashed a brutal crackdown on opposition rebels.

In an editorial in the online Huffington Post, Lavrov said Moscow was working with Syrian authorities on an almost daily basis to urge them to implement the Annan plan and “resolutely abandon their delusion that the internal political crisis in Syria will somehow go away.”

“We need to bring all the weight to bear on both the regime and the opposition and make them cease fighting and meet at the negotiating table,” he said, pushing Moscow's call for an international conference on Syria.

He also dismissed calls by some sections of the Syrian opposition for outside intervention.

“Other formulas that involve external intervention in Syria -- ranging from blocking TV channels that do not satisfy someone, to increasing arms supplies to opposition groups, to airstrikes -- will not bring peace either to that country or to the region as a whole,” Lavrov argued.

Denying that Moscow was trying to prop up the Assad regime, he added: “If we proclaim ending the bloodshed as our primary concern, we should focus precisely on that; in other words, we must press for a ceasefire in the first place, and promote the start of an inclusive all-Syrian dialogue aimed at negotiating a peaceful crisis settlement formula by the Syrians themselves.”

Observers’ chief warns of violence

The head of the U.N. observers in Syria said Friday a spike in violence is derailing the monitoring mission, which is the only functioning part of an international peace plan to calm the country’s spiraling crisis.

Maj. Gen. Robert Mood blamed both sides of the conflict for the escalating bloodshed.

“Violence over the past 10 days has been intensifying willingly by the both parties, with losses on both sides and significant risks for observers,” Mood told reporters in Damascus. He said the escalating violence is now limiting the mission’s ability “to observe, verify, report as well as assist in local dialogue and stability projects.”

Mood’s comments were the clearest sign yet that a peace plan brokered by Annan two months ago is disintegrating. The regime and the opposition both have ignored a truce that was supposed to go into effect April 12.

On Friday, the Syrian regime kept up a ferocious offensive on rebel areas around the country in one of the most serious escalations in violence since Annan brokered the truce.

An activist in the northern city of Aleppo said troops backed by helicopters and tanks were engaged in “raging battles” in the rebel-held town of Anadan and several other locations in the province.

Syrian troops have been sweeping through villages and towns in Syria’s northern, central, southern and seaside provinces this week.

The military on Wednesday overran the town of Haffa in the coastal Latakia province, pushing out hundreds of rebels after intense battles that lasted eight days. U.N. observers entered the nearly deserted town Thursday and found smoldering buildings, looted shops, smashed cars and a strong stench of death, according to U.N. spokeswoman Sausan Ghosheh.

The siege of Haffa, a Sunni-populated village, had become a focus of international concern because of fears the uprising against President Bashar Assad is evolving into a sectarian civil war pitting his minority Alawite sect against the majority Sunnis and other groups. Recent mass killings in other Sunni-populated areas have fed those concerns.

The fighting, now mostly quelled in Haffa, was mirrored in other parts of Syria, where more than 40 civilians and opposition fighters were killed Thursday, according to activists, alongside more than a half-dozen Syrian forces.

The fighting included clashes in the town of Hamuriya, near Damascus, that killed at least nine men who were allegedly butchered with knives. A video circulated by activists showed a pile of lifeless men, including one who was clearly slashed through the neck.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the Observatory, urged observers on Friday to “immediately investigate” the men’s slaughter.

Meanwhile, U.N. officials have said Syria is now embroiled in full-scale civil war, with activists saying more than 14,400 people have been killed since anti-regime protests erupted in March 2011, prompting a bloody crackdown by Assad’s forces.