Further deaths reported in Syria

Syrian government troops fought deadly battles with armed rebels yesterday as the EU pushed for an end to a split with Russia over how to end the 15-month bloodshed.

Syrian rebels resume fighting following the failure of the UN-backed Annan ceasefire

In talks in Saint Petersburg with Russian President Vladimir Putin, EU President Herman Van Rompuy said the EU and Russia “might have some divergent assessments” of the situation in Syria.

But he said they agreed that implementing the troubled peace plan brokered by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan was the only way forward in a situation that risks developing into full-scale civil war.

Government forces attacked rebel strongholds in Idlib province in the northwest and Deir Ezzor in the northeast as violence nationwide claimed nine lives yesterday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Britain-based watchdog said that the fighting in Idlib’s Jabal al-Zawiya hill district, in which two rebel fighters were killed, was the most intense since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime erupted in March last year.

In Deir Ezzor, the government deployed helicopters to strafe suspected rebel hideouts in farmland in the Sbeikhan district and one was hit by rebel fire, the Observatory said.

The fighting came a day after Mr Assad vowed to crush the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA), which announced on Friday that it was resuming “defensive operations” because of the failure of a UN-backed ceasefire that was supposed to go into effect from April 12.Meanwhile in Saint Petersburg, Mr Van Rompuy said the EU and Russia fully agreed that the Annan plan provided the” best opportunity to break the cycle of violence in Syria, avoiding a civil war and finding a peaceful, lasting solution.”

“We need to combine our efforts in order for this to happen and to find common messages on which we agree,” he said.Mr Van Rompuy had been expected to press Mr Putin to harden his hitherto soft line against Mr Assad’s regime.

International frustration with the Kremlin’s stance on Syria is growing again after Russia refused to squarely blame Assad for the massacre of more than 100 people in Houla last month, instead saying rebels shared some of the responsibility.

Mr Annan has himself expressed mounting frustration at the slow progress in implementing his peace blueprint.

The former UN chief has agreed to travel to Washington on Friday “to discuss next steps in his six-point plan and in particular political transition” in Syria, a senior State Department spokesman said.

Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi is to head to the United Nations later this week to press for swifter implementation of the Annan plan, a League official said.

Arab ministers at a meeting on Saturday in Doha urged the United Nations to refer Annan’s peace plan for Syria to Chapter VII, without explicitly calling for military action.

Chapter VII outlines action the UN Security Council might take, including military force, in response to threats to international peace, breaches of the peace and acts of aggression.

Mr Annan himself has demanded a “serious review” of deadlocked efforts to end the bloodshed and is stepping up pressure on international powers to put some muscle into their support for his peace plan or find a Plan B, diplomats said in New York.

The Syrian Observatory said 19 soldiers, eight rebels and 19 civilians were killed in violence across the country on Sunday.