SYRIAN President Bashar al-Assad must take the first step and pull his forces out of cities and allow humanitarian assistance, a senior Russian politician says.
In a statement today that signals a marked shift in Moscow's stance, Mikhail Margelov, the Kremlin-connected chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the upper house of Russian parliament, indicated Moscow's increasing impatience with Mr Assad and its eagerness to raise pressure on an old ally.
"Syrian President Bashar Assad must urgently fix numerous mistakes that he has made, according to Russia's official position," Margelov said, according to the ITAR-Tass and RIA Novosti news agencies.
Commenting on Wednesday's statement by the United Nations Security Council that spelled out UN mediator Kofi Annan's proposals, including guaranteed humanitarian access and the pullout of government forces from Syrian cities and towns, Mr Margelov said that Mr Assad should now act first.
"Assad must take the first step," Mr Margelov was quoted as saying.
"He must pull out the Syrian army from big cities. It's also necessary to deliver humanitarian assistance to the areas affected by fighting."
That is a departure from Russia's previous position that both the Government and opposition forces need to simultaneously withdraw from cities.
The Syrian Government has insisted that the opposition should be the first to end hostilities, while the US and European powers have demanded that Mr Assad's military halts its offence first, followed by the opposition.
Russia, along with China, has twice shielded Mr Assad from United Nations' sanctions over his crackdown on an uprising in which the UN estimates more than 8000 people have been killed.
But Moscow also has strongly supported a plan to settle the crisis by Mr Annan, the former UN secretary-general who is the joint UN and Arab League envoy for Syria.
Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said today that Mr Annan will visit Moscow in the next "couple of days" to discuss the settlement.
Mr Bogdanov said that Russia will also play host to a Syrian opposition delegation, including members of the National Coordination Committee, one of Syria's two main opposition groups, in Moscow in the next few days.
He said that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will meet with them.
Speaking before Russian parliament last week, Mr Lavrov criticised Mr Assad for being too slow to implement long-needed reforms and warned that the conflict in the Arab state could spiral out of control.
Meanwhile, UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said she was continuing to press for unhindered access for humanitarian organisations, including in pro-opposition areas.
Technical staff from UN agencies and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation are part of a government-led humanitarian assessment mission of humanitarian needs that began on March 18.
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