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WASHINGTON, April 9 (Reuters) – The United States on Monday
dismissed Syrian demands for written guarantees that rebels
would lay down arms as a stalling tactic and voiced outrage at
reports Syria attacked refugees inside Turkey.
Syria was to have started pulling troops out of towns and
cities by Tuesday, paving the way for a ceasefire under a peace
plan designed to end Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s efforts
to crush more than a year of anti-government protests.
Assad over the weekend demanded written guarantees from the
rebels that they would stop fighting and lay down arms, making
it even more likely that the peace plan devised by former U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan would fail.
“This is just more chaff being thrown up in the air at the
last minute to deflect attention form the fact that the regime
is not meeting the commitments that they made to Kofi Annan,”
said U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.
“This is just another way to stall for time,” she told
reporters, saying the United States saw “no indication” that
Syria was preparing to pull back its forces.
Clashes between Syrian and rebel forces along the Syrian
border with Turkey wounded at least five people, including two
Turkish officials, when stray bullets hit a refugee camp in
Turkey, Turkish officials said.
“We strongly condemn any attack by the Syrian regime on
refugees in bordering countries and we are absolutely outraged
by today’s report,” Nuland told reporters. “These incidents are
just another indication that the Assad regime does not seem at
all willing to meet the commitments that it made to Kofi Annan.”
(Reporting By Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Sandra Maler)
