France - Syria plan should be obligatory
2012-06-13 19:18
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius says Syria iss in a state of "civil war" and that President Bashar al-Assad's regime must leave power to stop the violence from growing further. (Jacques Demarthon, AFP) (Jacques Demarthon)
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Paris - France plans to ask the United Nations Security Council to make UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's Syria ceasefire plan mandatory, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Wednesday.
Fabius called on fellow Security Council members to "take recourse to Chapter Seven [of the UN charter] to make the measures in the Annan plan obligatory".
He told a press conference: "We are working on that and we hope that measure will be put in place quickly."
The UN Charter's Chapter Seven allows measures to be imposed on a country under penalty of sanctions or the use of force.
"We even heard today China expressing its deep concern. So the Security Council must now step up a gear, and place under Chapter Seven, that is to say make obligatory, the terms of the Annan plan or face very tough sanctions," he said.
"I remind you that the Annan plan calls notably for an end to violence, the withdrawal of the army from cities, bringing in humanitarian aid, that is everything that will allow the beginning of the political transition in Syria and the departure of Bashar al-Assad," Fabius said.
