Damascus: Syria has vowed to cooperate with
UN-Arab League peace envoy Kofi Annan while fighting
"terrorism," its term for the country`s anti-regime revolt,
the foreign ministry said on Friday.
"The Syrian government is determined to protect its
citizens by disarming the terrorists and continues to search
for a peaceful solution to the crisis by cooperating with
special envoy Kofi Annan," it said in a letter addressed to
the United Nations, carried by state news agency SANA.
Annan, the former UN chief, has received a response to
"concrete proposals" he submitted to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last weekend but had more "questions and is seeking
answers," his spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said on Thursday.
He was to give a videoconference briefing from Geneva
to the UN Security Council later on Friday on his talks with
Assad, whose brutal crackdown on dissent has claimed more than
9,100 lives, according to opposition activists.
In its letter, which was also addressed to the
Security Council president but pointedly not to the Arab
League, from which Syria has been suspended, Damascus called
for outside help.
It called "on all countries and organisations which
combat terrorism... to apply pressure on all known parties to
stop their support for terrorism and to halt the bloodshed" in
Syria, in line with Security Council resolutions.
Damascus has "made the choice of national national to
resolve the problem it faces by bringing opposition and
independent circles into the process... of a restoring
security and stability to Syria," it said.
Annan confirmed Wednesday that he had received a
response from the Syrian regime but was seeking
clarifications, in his mission to halt the bloodshed which
Damascus blames on foreign-backed "terrorist gangs."
PTI
