Syria: France calls for UN to enforce Annan plan Published duration 13 June 2012

image caption Smoke was seen rising in Talbisa in Homs province (picture released by opposition Shaam News Network)

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius says he will call on the UN Security Council to make mediator Kofi Annan's Syria peace plan mandatory.

France would propose that Mr Annan's six-point plan be enforced under the UN's Chapter Seven provision, he said.

Mr Fabius said the conflict in Syria had descended into a "civil war".

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has warned Russia its interests in the region will be harmed if it does not act more constructively.

She told reporters in Washington that Moscow said it wanted peace and stability restored in Syria and claimed to have vital interests in the Middle East and relationships that it wanted to keep. "They put all that at risk if they do not move more constructively right now," she said.

Mrs Clinton's remarks came a day after she accused Moscow of sending attack helicopters to Damascus, a claim vehemently rejected on Wednesday by Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

On a visit to Tehran, Mr Lavrov insisted that Russia was "not supplying Syria or any other country with items which can be used against peaceful protesters, unlike the United States, which regularly supplies weapons to the region".

Mrs Clinton urged Russia to join negotiations, hours after the French foreign minister gave his news conference in Paris at which he said he hoped Moscow would agree to his proposal to enforce Kofi Annan's six-point plan.

But Russia and fellow UN Security Council member, China, would be unlikely to accept a Chapter Seven resolution, which allows for action to be backed up by force.

It was necessary "to resort to Chapter Seven to make the provisions of the Annan plan mandatory", Mr Fabius said.

"We are working towards this and hope that this move will be swiftly implemented."

'Heavy sanctions'

Back in April, Mr Fabius's predecessor as France's foreign minister, Alain Juppe, warned that if the Annan plan failed then the UN would "have to move to a new stage" involving enforcement.

Under the Annan plan, all armed violence has to end and all parties must ensure provision of humanitarian assistance to all areas affected by the fighting.

The authorities are also required to ensure freedom of movement for journalists and the right for people to demonstrate peacefully.

Mr Fabius said the Annan plan would now have to be enforced "under pain of very heavy sanctions".

He said he would get in touch immediately with his European and American colleagues to propose a raft of new, "tougher" measures that would hit not only Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad but also "army officials and all those who support Assad".

Russia and China both have a veto at the UN Security Council and have already blocked two resolutions calling for tougher action against Damascus.

Earlier on Wednesday, Syrian forces seized control of the western mountain town of Haffa after fierce fighting with rebels. State media said Haffa had been "purged of terrorists" and government forces had "restored security and calm to the area".

The rebel Free Syrian Army said it had pulled its fighters out of the area to spare residents from further massive bombardments.

Syrian activists said at least 40 people were killed by security forces across the country on Wednesday. At least 12 people, most of them women and children, died in attacks by helicopters and artillery on the rebel-held town of Rastan, north of Homs, activists reported.

The government said it had buried 27 military personnel killed in the conflict.

media caption Footage shows UN observers being turned away by pro-regime villagers in Haffa

As diplomatic moves over Syria intensify, the Russian foreign minister is due to meet British Foreign Secretary William Hague in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Thursday.

Asked by reporters whether he felt Syria had descended into civil war, Mr Hague said: "I continue to put it the same way as the last few days, that Syria is on the edge of collapse or of a deadly sectarian civil war."