Damascus: Syria's opposition called for protests yesterday to mark the 30th anniversary of the Hama massacre, as Arab and Western countries moved closer to agreement on action to halt a regime crackdown on dissent.
Demonstrations were to be held in various cities in memory of the estimated 10,000 to 40,000 people who perished in February 1982 when then president Hafez Al Assad, father of the current president Bashar, launched a fierce 27-day assault on the central town to crush an Islamist revolt.
Commemoration events were also scheduled in France, Britain, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and a number of other countries.
The anniversary is taking place as the regime in Damascus battles to crush an unprecedented revolt that has left more than 6,000 people dead since mid-March, according to estimates of human rights groups.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that a general strike was also being observed yesterday in Hama, one of the focal points of the current repression.
International efforts to stop the bloodshed have failed, with Russia, a key ally of Syria, firmly opposed to an Arab- and Western-backed UN Security Council resolution condemning the violence.
Compromise
But diplomats hinted in New York on Wednesday that a compromise to overcome Russia's objections was possible.
"We have made some progress today," Britain's UN ambassador Mark Lyall Grant told reporters after a three-hour meeting of council members.
Russia's envoy Vitaly Churkin for his part said there was a much better understanding of what needed to be done to reach a consensus. "I think it was a pretty good session," he said.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Russia had a "less negative" attitude towards the resolution and a vote could take place "perhaps" next week.
"For the first time, the attitude of Russia, China, India and South Africa (on the Security Council) is less negative," Juppe told MPs.
The draft resolution, introduced by Morocco, calls for the formation of a unity government leading to "transparent and free elections." It stresses that there will be no foreign military intervention in Syria as there was in Libya, which helped to topple Muammar Gaddafi.
New discussions
A new draft was expected to be prepared following Wednesday's talks and submitted to Council members later yesterday for new discussions, diplomats said.
The diplomatic wrangling is taking place amid warnings that Syria was slowly heading to civil war as the largely peaceful revolt that began in March increasingly takes on a sectarian tone and moves closer to the capital Damascus.
The number of dead has mounted in recent weeks with Homs and Hama suffering heavy losses.
Activists said the 1982 massacre of Hama, which went largely unnoticed by the international community, had now come back to haunt the Al Assad clan.
"On this 30th anniversary, another massacre is taking place today but on a larger scale and led by the son of Hafez Al Assad," the Local Coordination Committees, an umbrella opposition group said.
Civilian deaths mount
More than 70 people, most of them civilians, were killed in fighting across Syria in the past two days, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The Britain-based monitoring group said at least eight civilians were killed in shelling by regime forces in the restive central city of Homs while 24 were killed in fighting in the Damascus region, among them a three-year-old child and a 25-year-old woman.
Five civilians also died in the southern province of Daraa and one was killed by sniper fire in Idlib, in the northwest of the country.
The Observatory said the casualties include six rebel troops killed near the capital Damascus and 15 soldiers killed in fighting with rebel forces.
