Friday, July 6, 2012
'Friends of Syria' Meet in Paris
The "Friends of Syria"--an informal group that includes the Syrian opposition and its international supporters--are meeting in Paris today for a conference on the *escalating violence in Syria (al-Jazeera).
The United States and the European Union threatened new sanctions on the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while the opposition Syrian National Council called for an international no-fly zone over the country. At the same time, a commander in Assad's elite Republican guard, Brig. Gen. Manaf Tlass, *defected and fled Syria for France (NYT), the French foreign ministry confirmed.
"Sixteen months into an uprising that has now left more than 15,000 Syrians dead, the diplomatic and military pace of the conflict has become a lot hotter. On all fronts President Bashar *Assad is losing ground. No one knows when a tipping point may occur. But even his dwindling band of friends seems to recognize that he is on the way out," says the Economist.
"The pressures on Bashar Assad's regime are real and mounting; it is running out of cash and now faces real military pressures from Turkey. These pressures could be heightened and *combined with smart diplomacy, and they could push Assad out of power. But that would mean trying to work with the Russian government rather than attacking it," writes TIME's Fareed Zakaria.
