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| Syrian men heat a fire to boil water near their tent at a refugee camp near the Turkish border, in Azaz, Syria, Sunday, Dec. 9, 2012. |
BEIRUT (AP) -- Syria's civil war spilled over into neighboring Lebanon once again on Sunday, with gun battles in the northern city of Tripoli between supporters and opponents of President Bashar Assad's regime that left four dead.
Nine Syrian judges and prosecutors
also defected to the opposition. It was the latest setback for the
regime, which appears increasingly embattled with rebels making gains in
northern Syria and near Damascus, the capital.
The
defecting judges posted a joint statement online urging others to join
them and break ranks with Assad's regime. There have been several
high-level defections over the past year, including Assad's former prime
minister.
In Geneva, the United Nation's
Special Representative for Syria and the Arab League, Lakdhar Brahimi,
met with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov and U.S.
Deputy Secretary of State William Burns to discuss the crisis in Syria.
They said in a joint statement that the situation in Syria was "bad and
getting worse," adding that a political process to end the conflict was
"still necessary and still possible."
Russia
and the United States have argued bitterly over how to address the
conflict, which began with peaceful protests against Assad in March 2011
and escalated into a civil war that has killed an estimated 40,000
people. Activists said another 45 were killed on Sunday.
The
U.S. has criticized Russia for shielding the Assad regime, while Moscow
has accused Washington of encouraging the rebels and being intent on
regime change.
In Moscow, Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia agreed to take part in the
Geneva talks on condition there would be no demand for Assad to step
down. Washington and its allies, including Turkey and Qatar, have
repeatedly called on the Syrian president to step down to help stop the
bloodshed.
"We are not conducting any
negotiations on the fate of Assad," Lavrov said, adding that the
Americans were wrong to see Moscow as softening its position on Syria.
"All attempts to portray things differently are unscrupulous, even for
diplomats of those countries which are known to try to distort the facts
in their favor."
Addressing fears that Assad
could use chemical weapons in a last-ditch effort to save his regime,
Lavrov once again said the Syrian government has given assurances that
it has no intention of ever using the weapons of mass destruction. He
said the greatest threat is that they would fall into the hands of
militants.
Russia's foreign minister said that
after he agreed to a U.S. proposal to have his and Secretary of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton's deputies "brainstorm" on Syria, the Americans
began to suggest that Russia was softening its position.
"No such thing," Lavrov said. "We have not changed our position."
He
urged the international community to come together and "with one voice"
to demand a cease-fire, return U.N. observers in bigger numbers and
begin a political dialogue. Lavrov repeated that Russia was not wedded
to Assad but believed that only the Syrians have the right to choose
their leaders.
In Washington, a senior State
Department official said the U.S. remains willing to hold additional
discussions in the weeks ahead, if it would help "advance the process of
political transition that the people of Syria seek." The official spoke
on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss
Sunday's meeting in Geneva with reporters.
Qatari
Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani urged
Assad to step down. With the rebels at the president's doorstep in
Damascus, he said, Assad knows the regime will fall.
"But
how much killing and destruction does he want before this inevitable
outcome?" Hamad said after an Arab League meeting in the Qatari capital,
Doha.
In Lebanon, fighting between pro-and
anti-Assad gunmen flared as bodies of three Lebanese, who were killed
after crossing into Syria to fight in the civil war were brought back
home for burial, the state-run National News Agency said.
Four
people were killed and 12 were wounded in the gunfights, the agency
said. Two Lebanese soldiers were also injured, the Lebanese Armed Forces
command said.
Syria civil war has often
spilled into neighboring countries including Turkey, Lebanon and Israel,
raising concerns of a wider war in the volatile region.
Lebanon,
which Syria dominated for decades, is particularly vulnerable to
getting sucked into the crisis. The two countries share a porous border
and a complex web of political and sectarian ties.
Syria's
opposition is dominated by members of the Sunni Muslim minority.
Assad's regime is predominantly Alawite, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
Tripoli
has been the scene of frequent sectarian clashes between the Alawite
and Sunni Muslim communities.
Last week, the Lebanese army sent
additional troops to Tripoli to try to prevent clashes that broke out
over reports that 17 Lebanese men were killed after entering Syria to
fight alongside the rebels.
In Syria, fighting
between opposition fighters and regime troops was concentrated in
northern Idlib province, in the Damascus suburbs and in Aleppo, Syria's
largest city, according to the Britain-based opposition activist group
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. At least 45 people were killed in
fighting Sunday, said the group, which relies on reports from activists
on the ground.
Syria's state-run SANA news
agency said four people were killed when a rocket slammed into the
Armenian quarter of the city of Homs. SANA said "terrorists" were behind
the attack that also injured several others.
Damascus refers to rebels
as terrorists and mercenaries of Western and Gulf countries.
The
Observatory also said rebels have made significant advances in the
battle over a sprawling military base west of Aleppo after heavy clashes
with regime troops Sunday.
