Russia’s Syria plan rejected by Hillary Clinton, who says it needs ‘teeth’
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is set to formally designate the Pakistan-based Haqqani network as a terror group.
Russia's plan for Syria, which advocates that the UN rekindle a June strategy involving a cease fire and political transition for Assad, was shot down by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Sunday.
"There is no point to passing a resolution with no teeth because we've seen time and time again that Assad will ignore it and keep attacking his own people," Clinton told reporters at the end of the APEC summit in the Russian city of Vladivostok, Agence France Presse reported.
Clinton has been pushing for increased international pressure on Syria's dictator Bashar Assad, and said that if Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov did not step up, the United States and its allies would increase their support for Syria's opposition, the Associated Press reported.
"We have to be realistic. We haven't seen eye-to-eye… that may continue," Clinton told reporters after talks Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin, BBC News reported.
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"I will continue to work with Foreign Minister Lavrov to see if we can revisit the idea of putting the Syrian transition plan that we agreed to in Geneva earlier this summer into a Security Council resolution," she continued, referring to the June plan. "But […] that will only be effective if it includes consequences for non-compliance."
Russia, one of Syria's main international allies, has along with China blocked three UN resolutions by the US, the UK and France to up the pressure on Syria's government with international consequences, Bloomberg Businessweek reported.
“As for the actions to achieve these goals, the US tends to threaten, to increase pressure via more and more sanctions,” Lavrov told reporters. “We disagree with this in principle, because to solve the problems,” all parties need to be involved, not isolated, he said.
Some, however, believe time is running out for the United States to influence the escalating situation in Syria, which has already claimed around 23,000 lives, according to Syrian Observatory for Human Rights figures.
“We are really risking all-out war in the region,” said Clinton’s former policy planning chief Anne-Marie Slaughter. “We’re missing an enormous opportunity to actually shape what happens.”
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