'Kuwait to replace Syria' for UN body bid
Kuwait has agreed "privately" to contest the May 20 secret-ballot vote at the UN General Assembly as a candidate for one of the four seats on the Geneva-based Human Rights Council, one western diplomat said on Tuesday.
"Syria has faced several calls from the Asia group to withdraw," another envoy said.
Diplomats said it was unclear whether Syria would take over Kuwait's bid for a council slot in 2013. A diplomat told the Reuters news agency that Asian countries would have to improve the changes.
Syria was chosen in January as one of the four candidates, alongside India, Indonesia, and the Philippines, for seats to be filled by Asia under a convention that stipulates UN bodies be filled by regional blocs.
Bashar al-Assad's government is under growing international pressure over the crackdown, with the European Union imposing an arms embargo and sanctions on 13 senior regime figures - though not Assad himself - it says are responsible for violence against protesters.
The US is also close to calling for an end to Assad's rule, the Associated Press news agency reported on Tuesday, quoting an anonymous White House official. The first step would be to declare that Assad, Syria's president, had forfeited the legitimacy to rule, the official said.
On Tuesday, White House spokesman Mark Toner said: "We urge the Syrian government to stop shooting protesters, to allow for peaceful marches and to stop these campaigns of arbitrary arrests and to start a meaningful dialogue."
'Writing on the wall'
Human rights groups and some governments have been campaigning to keep Syria off the council.
Their efforts have intensified since Damascus deployed security forces against pro-democracy protesters calling for an end to Assad's 11-year presidency and the Baath Party's decades-long rule.
"Kuwait's candidacy certainly reduces the chances that Syria will get elected," Peggy Hicks, global advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, told AFP. "Syria should see the writing on the wall and withdraw."
Geneva-based UN Watch hailed the news but voiced concern over Kuwait being its replacement.
Kuwait is "far better than Syria, but another non-democracy nevertheless", the group said, according to the Reuters news agency.
According to the National Organisation for Human Rights in Syria, over 750 civilians have been killed and around 9,000 people arrested since the crackdown on protests began.
The Syrian government has barred journalists from entering the country to report on the uprising. Dorothy Parvaz, an Al Jazeera journalist, has not been heard from since she arrived in Damascus on April 29.
