An advance team of U.N.
observers is ready to enter Syria, where the cease-fire has been
"relatively respected" despite government troops and heavy weapons
still in cities and continuing abuses, the spokesman for international
envoy Kofi Annan said Friday.The
advance team is "standing by to board planes and to get themselves on
the ground as soon as possible" once the U.N. Security Council gives
approval for the mission as hoped when it meets later Friday, Annan's
spokesman, Ahmad Fawzi told a news conference.
Annan
has asked the 15-nation Security Council to approve sending a U.N.
observer mission to Syria as soon as possible. The council's draft
resolution being taken up Friday would authorize an advance element of
up to 30 unarmed military observers.
The
resolution being considered also would demand the government ensure
their "full and unimpeded freedom of movement throughout Syria" and
guarantee the mission's ability to interview any individual "freely or
in private."
It also would demand that President Bashar Assad's
government withdraw its troops and heavy weapons from population
centers, and reiterates its call for unimpeded access for
humanitarian workers.
The demands are part of Annan's six-point plan to stop the slide toward civil war and launch talks on a political transition.
If
the council gives its approval Friday, Fawzi said that the advance team
would quickly prepare the way for a full mission — which would require
an additional Security Council approval — of up to 250 observers on
the ground.
"And
then next week, if the cease-fire holds, and we hope it will, and if it
turns into a genuine cessation of hostilities and of violence of all
kinds and all forms by both sides, while the advance team is working
effectively on the ground, then the council could authorized a
full-fledged observer mission, with all the capacities needed, to
support on the ground, the implementation of the six-point plan."
Syria's
opposition, meanwhile, called for widespread protests on Friday as a
test of Assad's commitment to the U.N.-brokered cease-fire that U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters in Geneva is so fragile that a single gunshot could derail it.
Regime
forces halted heavy shelling and other major attacks in line with the
truce that began at dawn Thursday, but tanks and troops remained that
could dissuade opponents from gathering in the open.
Fawzi
quoted Annan as telling the council during its two-hour closed-door
briefing Thursday that "the continued presence of Syrian armed forces,
including armor, in and around population centers, must end
immediately. Violence in all its forms, including arbitrary arrests,
torture and abductions, must stop."
Fawzi
also quoted Annan as telling the council "that we need eyes on the
ground, in light of the fragile calm that appears to be prevailing. We
need eyes on the ground quickly to observe and monitor the situation."
Syria's
approval for the U.N. mission also is needed, Fawzi said, as is
customary with non-military political operations that do not mandate
any specific actions.
"The
Syrian government has expressed its desire to see Mr. Annan's six-point
plan succeed," Fawzi said. "The six-point plan includes a provision for
a U.N.-supervision mechanism.
"There
is no ambiguity there," he said. "Our understanding is the Syria
government agrees to the deployment of a U.N. observer mission.''