UN urges international action

Former chief UN prosecutor Carla del Ponte said yesterday that the International Criminal Court should be called in to probe war crimes in Syria and bring the perpetrators to justice.
Issuing a report by a UN commission of inquiry that found war crimes by both government forces and rebels were spiralling amid an increasingly radicalised and sectarian conflict, del Ponte said it was time to act.
"We suggest the International Criminal Court. We can't decide, but we are pressuring the international community to act, because it's time to act," said del Ponte, a member of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry.
"It's time to react. After two years, it's incredible that the Security Council hasn't made a decision," she told reporters in Geneva as the team prepared to submit a list of perpetrators who should face justice.
The decision to refer the conflict to the ICC lies with the UN Security Council, where there are deep rifts between Western members and Russia, a longstanding ally of Syria's regime, plus China.
The commission is due to submit the list to the UN's human rights office next month, potentially setting the wheels of international justice in motion, but has said it will not make it public.
Del Ponte gained renown for her tough stance as the UN's top prosecutor investigating war crimes in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.
The commission was set up in 2011 at the behest of the UN Human Rights Council.
Meanwhile, Britain, backed by a bare handful of European Union allies, is fighting to lift an EU arms embargo barring the supply of weapons to the Syrian rebel coalition battling President Bashar al-Assad.
Arriving for EU foreign ministers' talks yesterday, British Foreign Secretary William Hague called for changes to the existing arms ban "so that we can provide a broader range of support to the (Syrian) National Coalition."
But Britain has found little support and ministers began yesterday's talks divided with time running out for a decision.
"I don't see any need to amend the embargo, I don't think it would make sense to send more weapons to Syria," said Austria's Michael Spindelegger, echoing counterparts from Cyprus, Sweden and Spain.
Syria has been embroiled in conflict since Assad's regime launched a brutal crackdown on protests that erupted in March 2011. The United Nations says about 70,000 people have been killed.