(VOVworld) - A meeting of over 100 countries on the Syria crisis in Paris called in its final statement for President Bashar al-Assad to stand down as part of a transition in the crisis-torn nation. They urged stronger U.N. Security Council action on the crisis on Friday and called for “broader and tougher” sanctions. Foreign ministers and senior diplomats from the “Friends of Syria” group agreed after a morning of talks in Paris to “massively increase” aid to Syrian rebels and to provide them with communications equipment. According to the statement, Morocco will host the next “Friends of Syria” conference while Italy announced that it’s willing to host future “Friends of Syria” conferences.

The meeting took place in Paris, France. Photo: internet

In another development, Russia and China voted on Friday against the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution which unilaterally condemned the Syrian government. While a total of 41 member states voted in favour of the UN resolution to increase pressure on Syria while urging all related parties to abide by the six-point peace plan of UN-Arab envoy Kofi Annan, India, the Philippines and Uganda abstained. The resolution, tabled by the US and Turkey, strongly condemned "the widespread, systematic and gross violations of human rights; acts of violence; ongoing atrocities; and indiscriminate targeting of civilians by the Syrian authorities”.
Russia earlier proposed to include the sentence of "strongly condemns all terrorist acts in Syria" in the text, but was rejected by the Human Rights Council. China said the resolution was neither balanced nor objective. It would do no good to help resolve the human rights issues in Syria, instead would possibly intensify the confrontation among parties in Syria, making the political process of Syria more complicated.