EMERGING powers India, Brazil and South Africa urged Syria’s regime to show restraint and respect for human rights at a meeting in Damascus with President Bashar al-Assad, a joint statement said yesterday.
The countries “called for an immediate end to all violence and urged all sides to act with utmost restraint and respect for human rights and international human rights law”, the joint statement said.
Envoys from the three countries travelled to the Syrian capital for meetings on Wednesday (August 10) with Assad and foreign minister Walid Muallem.
The statement, also released at the UN late on Wednesday, said Assad had admitted to the delegation that his security forces had made “some mistakes” in battling the protests.
Rights groups say more than 2,000 people have died in protests since an uprising started in mid-March. More deaths were reported on Wednesday as the talks went ahead.
The Syrian president “reassured the delegation of his commitment to the reform process, aimed at ushering in multi-party democracy”, according to the statement.
On Thursday (August 11), Syrian forces killed at least five people as they stormed another two towns in pursuit of anti-regime protesters.
The killings occurred soon after columns of tanks entered the town of Qusayr in the central province of Homs early on Thursday, sending residents fleeing, a rights activist in the town said, reached by telephone from Nicosia.
