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Assad to 'Spare No Effort' to Make Annan's Plan Succeed
[An Nahar] Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad Trampler of Homs... has agreed to a peace plan by international envoy Kofi Annan  ...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo...to end the crisis in Syria and vowed to make every effort to make it succeed, the state agency SANA said Thursday. Assad, however, stressed the U.N.-Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... envoy's plan would succeed only if "terrorist acts" backed by foreign powers stopped across the country. "President Assad ... has informed Annan that Syria approves the plan (the envoy) submitted but had made remarks about it," SANA said. The agency added Assad had underlined that he would "spare no effort" to make the six-point plan work. It said Assad's remarks were made in a message to the world's emerging powers meeting Thursday in New Delhi. Assad in his message expressed hope that Annan's plan would "contribute to re-establishing security and stability in the country". But he stressed that the former U.N. secretary general's efforts to end one year of bloodshed in Syria would only succeed if support for "terrorism" ends. "It is necessary to get a commitment from other parties for gangs to stop their terrorist acts, to withdraw the weapons of these groups ... and for them to stop ... kidnapping innocent civilians, massacres and the destruction of private and public infrastructure," according to Assad's message. Annan's plan includes a commitment to stop all violence, daily two-hour humanitarian ceasefires and media access to all areas affected by the fighting. It also calls for an inclusive Syrian-led political process, the right to demonstrate, and the release of people jugged arbitrarily. Posted by: Fred 2012-03-30 |
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