BICOM

In a sharply worded report to the UN Security Council, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has criticised the Syrian government for failing to “send a clear signal” regarding the ceasefire brokered last week by UN and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan. Ban has asked the Security Council to increase the peacekeeping force in Syria to 300. Only six monitors have so far been sent to the country. The Security Council will meet today to discuss the report, but will only vote on a new resolution on Syria next week. The Friends of Syria, the umbrella organization for Syrian opposition groups and their international supporters will also meet today in Paris.

Speaking during a visit to a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels, UN Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Assad that he was “squandering his last chance” if he failed to implement the Annan ceasefire plan. “We are at a crucial turning point. We will judge the al-Assad regime by their actions, not their words,” she added. “Either we succeed in pushing forward with Kofi Annan’s plan… or additional measures will have to be considered. We will continue to increase the pressure.”

In a separate development, the wives of the German and British Ambassadors to the UN have posted a four-minute YouTube video which calls on Asma Assad, the British-born wife of president Bashar Assad, to “stand up for peace”. According to Huberta von Voss Wittig and Sheila Lyall Grant, the video was their own initiative. It appeals directly to Mrs Assad, calling her “Asma” throughout, and, using pictures of injured children, it says “these children could all be your children”.