BEIRUT: Western diplomats dismissed a new Russian draft resolution on the Syria crisis distributed Monday at the U.N. Security Council, as calls mounted for the United Nations to step in to take decisive action on the increasingly desperate Syria stalemate. Meanwhile, the U.N. said that it would start training Arab League observers working in Syria within days.

A formal request for help has been made by the Arab League and the U.N. has agreed to start the training in Cairo after League foreign ministers meet this weekend, a U.N. spokeswoman, Vannina Maestracci, told AFP.

Claiming a peace plan monitored by Arab observers has failed to douse a 10-month-old struggle between President Bashar Assad and his foes, the renegade Free Syrian Army urged the Arab League to step aside and let the U.N. handle the crisis on its own.

In a statement signed by Free Syrian Army leader Riyad al-Asaad, it called on the 22-member bloc to “quickly transfer the case of Syria to the U.N. Security Council.”
The statement, sent to AFP in Nicosia, appealed to the international community to “act quickly against the regime through Chapter 7 of the U.N. charter to maintain peace” in Syria.

The Syrian Free Army is made up of deserters and says it has 40,000 troops stationed in neighboring Turkey. And, in a sign of increasing coordination and support for a militarized opposition force, the umbrella group The Syrian National Council said in a statement it had set up a liaison office and a hotline with the SFA to follow political developments on the ground.

Earlier, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in Abu Dhabi reiterated a call for Assad to “stop killing, and listen to his people,” urging the Security Council to act on a situation which has reached an “unacceptable stage.”
“I hope the U.N. Security Council handles Syria in a coherent manner and with a sense of gravity,” but did not recommend any specific action.

“The casualties have reached such an unacceptable stage we cannot let the situation continue this way,” Ban said.
Arab foreign ministers will meet Sunday to discuss the future of the Arab League mission sent last month to check if Syria was abiding by the agreement it accepted on Nov. 2.
The Arab League’s plan required Syria to halt the bloodshed, withdraw the military from cities, free detainees and hold dialogue with the opposition.

About 200 Arab League observers are working in Syria to verify whether the government is abiding by its agreement to end the military crackdown on dissent, but so far they appear to have made little impact.

Adding to criticism of the initiative, the leader of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, was quoted Sunday as saying Arab troops should be sent to Syria to stop the deadly crackdown – the first statements by an Arab leader calling for the deployment of troops inside Syria.

An Arab League official said Monday that Qatar has not made any proposals to the League to send troops. The official cautioned that the only Arab nation that could have potentially sent troops to Syria would have been Egypt, due to the size of its army and its historic ties with Syria, but that this is not likely to happen.

The Egyptian military is tied down in its own nation’s turmoil since the ouster of longtime President Hosni Mubarak last February. Egyptian troops are also under increasing pressure to safeguard Egypt’s sensitive borders with Israel, the Gaza Strip, Libya and Sudan.
The League official spoke on condition of anonymity.

The new Russian resolution was circulated as Germany again complained about the slow pace of talks, but diplomats said there is no apparent change in the Russian position opposing any strong U.N. action against President Bashar Assad’s crackdown on protests which has left upwards of 5,000 people dead.

“It is high time for the council to have serious negotiations,” a spokesman for Germany’s U.N. mission said, stressing how there have been no talks among all 15 members of the council on a Syria resolution for more than three weeks.

Activists reported 12 people were killed across the country in continued violence Monday. Random gunfire by pro-Assad militiamen killed five people, including a woman, and wounded nine in the restive city of Homs, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

A sniper later shot dead a 16-year-old girl there, it added.
It said five soldiers were killed when they tried to change sides during a clash with rebels in the northwestern province of Idlib, adding that 15 soldiers had succeeded in defecting.

Meanwhile, a member of Syria’s parliament reportedly fled the country to join the opposition, saying the Syrian people are suffering sweeping human rights violations.
Imad Ghalioun, who represents the central city of Homs, told Al-Arabiya TV that the city is a disaster after months of being a focus of the regime’s fierce crackdown.