* Bombardment of Homs has galvanised anger
* Powers likely to push for humanitarian access
* Military intervention off agenda
TUNIS, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Western and Arab powers
meeting in Tunis on Friday will issue a "challenge" to President
Bashar al-Assad to let in aid for victims of Syria's
intensifying conflict - but a Libya-style military intervention
is not on the agenda.
They come together as international outrage over Assad's
repression of unrest has reached unprecedented levels,
galvanised by the bombardment of the city of Homs, where scores
have died this week and tanks moved into the rebel stronghold on
Thursday.
But with moves for tougher action in the United Nations
stymied and no appetite for foreign military action, there is
little prospect of decisive steps.
The United States, Britain, France and Turkey are among more
than 70 nations joining the first meeting of the new "Friends of
Syria" group in the Tunisian capital.
"One of the things you are going to see coming out of the
meeting tomorrow are concrete proposals on how we, the
international community, plan to support humanitarian
organizations ... within days, meaning that the challenge is on
the Syrian regime to respond to this," said a senior U.S.
official.
Asked if the group's call would amount to an ultimatum, a
second U.S. official told reporters: "It is a challenge."
The meeting is also likely to name a new envoy to push for a
political transition in Syria, and to help the fractious
opposition to organise itself.
But the gathering is expected to come up against a harsh
reality: there is little the outside world can or will do as
long as Russia and China are vetoing anti-Assad resolutions in
the U.N. Security Council and his opponents in Syria are not
united into a cohesive opposition movement.
With other options limited, humanitarian aid is set to be a
major focus of the meeting in Tunis, a symbolic venue because it
was here last year that the "Arab Spring" upheavals started.
U.S. human rights ambassador Eileen Donahoe told a news
conference in Geneva the Tunis meeting "will focus on finding
ways to intensify the pressure on the regime and mobilising
humanitarian relief".
"The United States hopes that the Tunis meeting will help
enable a Syrian-led transition, an inclusive democratic process,
before the regime's actions tear the country apart," she said.
HUMANITARIAN CORRIDORS
The opposition Syrian National Council (SNC), the main
Syrian interlocutor at the Tunis meeting, announced that it
would ask the "Friends of Syria" to prioritise the creation of
humanitarian corridors.
Senior SNC official Basma Kodmani said the group would
request that Russia persuade Assad to allow safe passage for
humanitarian convoys, avoiding the need for military force to
protect them. The SNC will call for the creation of corridors
from Lebanon to Homs, Turkey to Idlib and Jordan to Deraa.
The SNC would also urge the "Friends of Syria" to create
safe zones for refugees in border areas.
Unlike Arab and Western proposals to pile diplomatic
pressure on Assad to go, the humanitarian initiative is gaining
traction in Russia, which declined to attend the Tunis meeting.
"Those reluctant for a political solution, such as Russia,
may have to cooperate on humanitarian assistance. I don't see
how Russia or China can be opposed if it is negotiated with
them," Kodmani said.
U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos is expected to head to
Syria soon to try to secure access for aid workers.
The International Committee for the Red Cross is also
working with Syrian authorities and opposition for daily
ceasefires to allow aid to be delivered and casualties to be
evacuated. That initiative may be more likely to win Syrian
government approval than permanent safe zones or corridors.
A spokesman at France's foreign ministry said the conference
"will illustrate the total isolation of the regime of Bashar
al-Assad. It will recall that the international community has
condemned the regime's venture into criminality".
SHORING UP THE OPPOSITION
Also on the agenda will be the debate over whether to
recognise the SNC as a government-in-waiting, as Libya's
National Transitional Council was recognised in the months
leading up to Muammar Gaddafi's ouster last year.
Early signs that Tunis would be the forum for recognition
have faded amid concerns that the exile-led group controls no
territory in Syria and does not represent all factions.
Instead, Arab countries will seek to help the Syrian
opposition consolidate so it can better work with the Arab
League and the international community to ease Assad out.
The SNC could win recognition as a legitimate interlocutor,
but diplomatic and Syrian opposition sources said they did not
expect full recognition from all countries as the sole
legitimate representative of the Syrian people.
Concerns over opposition splits have also complicated the
debate on what kind of support to offer Syria's rebels.
The United States hinted earlier this week that it could
consider arming the Syrian rebels should efforts to end the
crisis fail. The Arab League also agreed at its last meeting
that it would offer all necessary aid to the Syrian opposition.
No arms have officially been dispatched yet, however, and
both Arab and Syrian opposition sources say that support is
likely, in the first instance, to be of a technical and
logistical nature, helping rebels inside Syria coordinate with
each other and with their supporters in exile.
"The problem is that there is a lack of coordination on the
ground because of the lack of technical capabilities and lack of
cash," said Omar Sheikh Ibrahim, a Syrian opposition activist
based in Tunisia.
"Hopefully, with aid coming in after this conference, we
will be able to improve communications and coordination with
technical and logistical equipment like Thuraya (satellite)
phones."
(Additional reporting by John Irish in Paris, Ayman Samir in
Cairo, Adrian Croft in London and Robert Evans in Geneva;
editing by Andrew Roche)
There are no comments yet