BEIRUT — A U.N.-brokered plan to stop the bloodshed in Syria effectively collapsed Sunday after President Bashar Assad’s government raised last-minute demands that Syria’s largest rebel group swiftly rejected.
The truce plan, devised by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, was supposed to go into effect Tuesday, with Syrian forces’ pullout from population centers, followed within 48 hours by a cease-fire by both sides in the uprising against the Assad family’s 40 years of repressive rule.
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But on Sunday, Syria’s Foreign Ministry said that ahead of any troop pullback, the government needs written guarantees from opposition fighters that they will lay down their weapons.
The commander of the rebel Free Syrian Army, Riad al-Asaad, said that while his group is ready to abide by a truce, it does not recognize the regime “and for that reason we will not give guarantees.”
Annan’s spokesman had no comment on the setback. Annan has not said what would happen if his deadlines were ignored.
Russia, an Assad ally that backs the cease-fire plan, may now be the only one able to salvage it. The rest of the international community, unwilling to contemplate military intervention, has little leverage over Syria.
In recent days, instead of preparing for a withdrawal, regime troops have stepped up the shelling of residential areas, killing dozens of civilians every day in what the opposition described as a rush to gain ground. Activists said at least 21 people were killed in violence Sunday, and as many as 40 may have lost their lives.
Just as Annan complained Sunday that the escalation was “unacceptable,” Syria said its acceptance of the Annan deal last week was misunderstood and suggested it would not be able to withdraw its troops under current conditions.
In addition to demanding written guarantees from the opposition, Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdessi said Syria also wants assurances from Annan that Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia — Assad’s most active critics — halt “financing and arming of terrorist groups.”
Qatar and Saudi Arabia are said to be creating a multimillion-dollar fund to pay rebel fighters, while Turkey has floated the idea of creating buffer zones for refugees in Syrian territory, near the Turkish border.
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