Pencilneckal-Assad
Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs...
leave power in a negotiated solution to 15 months of bloodshed that has claimed more than 13,000 lives.
Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said a day after meeting mediator 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...in Geneva that Russia would back any peaceful settlement to the crisis as long as it did not involve the use of outside force.
"We have never said or insisted that Assad necessarily had to remain in power at the end of the political process," Mr Gatilov told the ITAR-TASS news agency in Switzerland
...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, and William Tell...
"This issue has to be settled by the Syrians themselves."
The comments represent one of Russia's most explicit declarations of a position first signalled by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov a day after a February 7 meeting in Damascus
...The place where Pencilneck hangs his brass hat...
with Assad.
Mr Lavrov at the time refused to explicitly back Mr Assad and said the leadership structure of Moscow's Soviet-era ally "should be the result of agreement between the Syrians themselves."
Meanwhile,
...back at the alley, Slats Chumbaloni was staring into a hole that was just .45 inch in diameter and was less than three feet from his face ...
Syria's government declared today that the ambassadors and staff of several Western countries as well as Turkey were personae non gratae.
"Some states recently informed heads of our diplomatic missions and embassy staff that they are unwelcome," the foreign ministry said in a statement, adding Syria was now designating the ambassadors of the United States, Britannia, La Belle France and Turkey, among others, as personae non gratae.
The ambassadors of Canada, Italia and Spain were also named in the statement, as well as various embassy staff members from Belgium, Bulgaria and Germany.
The statement concluded by saying that Syria "still believes in the importance of dialogue based on principles of equality and mutual respect" and that diplomacy is a "necessary tool" for countries to resolve disputes.
"We hope that those countries which initiated this step will adopt the same principles, allowing for relations to be normalised," it added.
A slew of mainly Western countries expelled Syrian diplomats in the wake of the Houla massacre of more than 100 people in late May, one of the worst atrocities in the country since an uprising broke out in March 2011.