April 12, 2012
Despite Cease-Fire, Conditions Not Met by Assad
A fragile cease-fire seems to be holding in Syria, but in defiance of the UN-backed deal, President Bashar al-Assad has failed to pull back troops (Reuters) and heavy artillery from many towns. Opposition activists and Western powers remain highly skeptical of the regime's intentions. Kofi Annan, who helped broker the agreement, is scheduled to update the UN Security Council at 2 p.m. GMT.
Western governments are trying to persuade Russia to drop its veto and allow the Council to ratchet up the diplomatic push for Assad's ouster.
Annan has proposed a team of about 250 unarmed UN personnel to observe the cease-fire. A Norwegian general who has been in Damascus the past week negotiating plans for a UN peace-keeping mission said he was "cautiously optimistic" on the prospect.
Analysis
"The regime of President Bashar al-Assad is still in power and seems fairly well entrenched in the sense that the military is willing to support it. As long as that's the case, it's hard to see things changing. The one thing that could make a real difference is if there were a more unified and concerted pressure from the international community, which would mean that Russia and China would have to stop protecting Assad," says Tamara Cofman Wittes, Director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.
