Syria seeking Peace with help from China Plan

Syria ready to cooperate with Chinese peace initiative
7 March, 2012 – Al-Akhbar

Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said on Wednesday that Damascus was ready to cooperate with a Chinese initiative to end the bloodshed and begin dialogue between the regime and the opposition.

After meeting Chinese envoy Li Huaxin, Beijing’s former ambassador to Damascus, Muallem said Syria welcomed a six-point peace plan and was “ready to cooperate” with the plan aimed at “halting the violence,” the official SANA news agency reported.

Damascus was also ready to “cooperate with the envoy of the United Nations” and the Arab League, former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, who is due in Syria on Saturday, the minister added.

Li Huaxin, quoted earlier in Al-Watan newspaper, said he had already met Deputy Foreign Minister Ahmad Arnus to discuss China’s “six-point vision” on the year-long crisis in Syria.

The Chinese initiative, unveiled by Beijing on Sunday, calls for an immediate end to the violence and for dialogue between the regime of President Bashar Assad and the opposition.

Syria’s main opposition alliance has previously ruled out dialogue while Assad remains in power.

Beijing’s proposal rejects foreign interference or “external action for regime change” in Syria but supports the role of the UN Security Council “in strict accordance with the purposes and principles of the UN charter.”

Li is expected to meet representatives of opposition groups in the coming days, according to Al-Watan. …source