US rejects Russia’s call for Syria dialogue

The White House on Wednesday rejected Russia’s call for talks between President Bashar al-Assad’s government and the rebels reeling under a brutal assault by Syrian forces.

“From the (earliest) days of this situation in Syria, there was an opportunity for the Assad regime to engage in dialogue with the opposition,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney.

“Rather than take that opportunity, Assad brutally cracked down on his own people. We don’t think that that opportunity is available any more.

“It is clear that Assad has chosen a path and that choice has resulted in the deaths of many Syrians, including innocent children.”

Western nations have reacted angrily after Moscow and China vetoed a UN Security Council resolution condemning the crackdown on the pro-democracy protests.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Syria Tuesday and said Moscow was prepared to work to end the crisis under an Arab League peace plan and that Assad was ready for dialogue with all political forces.

But Carney criticized Lavrov’s mission, saying he was not sure “what the purpose was.”

“What is clear is that siding with the Assad regime at this stage will not get Russia anything except for the alienation of the Syrian people,” he said.

The Obama administration has proudly touted its “reset” of relations with Russia, but Moscow’s refusal to join efforts to push Assad aside has severely strained relations with the United States.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned the West on Wednesday against behaving “like a bull in a china shop,” saying Syrians themselves should be allowed to decide their own fate.

Carney reiterated that the United States was interested in working with its partners abroad to provide humanitarian aid to Syria, but added that it was not established yet how such a mission should work.

And he also repeated that Washington was looking to solve the agony of Syria’s people with a political solution — rather than by military means, following some calls for Washington to help arm the rebels.

“We never rule anything out in a situation like this, but we are pursuing a path that includes isolating and pressuring the Assad regime so that it stops its heinous slaughtering of its own people,” Carney said.

“You know, in the coming days, we will continue our very active discussions with friends and allies who support the Syrian people… to crystalize the international community’s next steps in that effort to halt the slaughter of the Syrian people and to pursue that transition to democracy.”

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Washington was “consulting with individual countries now” about when that group would meet and what it might do.

One of the issues the United States would like the group to examine is how to send humanitarian aid to the Syrian people, Nuland said.

“We on the US side have already been looking at what we can do to prepare ourselves on both the financial and the legal side so that we’re ready to provide humanitarian aid, such as food and medicine,” she said.

But such efforts will have to be coordinated with the international community, including Syria’s neighbors, she said.

She said Turkish plans for an international meeting on Syria are “part and parcel” of efforts to form a “friends of Syria” grouping, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will discuss the issue in Washington early next week with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.