President Bashar al-Assad said on Thursday Syria would spare no effort to ensure the success of international envoy Kofi Annan's peace mission but warned it would not work without securing an end to foreign funding and arming of rebels opposing him. The state news agency SANA quoted Assad, in a letter to the leaders of the BRIC economic powers, which include his key ally Russia, as saying "countries which support the armed groups with money and weapons must be persuaded to stop this immediately".
At the same time, Britain said it was doubling non-military aid to opponents of Assad and expanding its scope to equipment, possibly including secure telephones to help activists communicate more easily without fear of detection and attack. The aid, worth $800,000, "includes agreement in principle for practical non-lethal support to them inside Syria," Foreign Secretary William Hague said.
"President Assad said that for his mission to succeed, Annan must focus on drying up the wells of support for terrorism pointed at Syria, especially from countries which have announced that they are arming and financing the terrorist groups in Syria," SANA reported.
"In return for the formal commitment to the success of Annan's mission it is necessary to obtain commitments from the other parties to halt the terrorist acts by the armed groups and to withdraw the weapons of these groups and call on them to stop their terrorist acts "Assad's letter said.