Assad vows Syria will defeat ‘foreign conspiracy’ at any price.

Assad vows Syria will defeat ‘foreign conspiracy’ at any price.(AA).President Bashar al-Assad said on Sunday that Syria would defeat what he described as a foreign plot being waged against the country, according to the official SANA news agency. “The Syrian people will not allow this conspiracy to achieve its objectives,” Assad said. “What is happening now is not only directed at Syria but the whole region. Because Syria is the cornerstone, foreign powers are targeting it so their conspiracy succeeds across the entire region.” “The Syrian people will prevent this conspiracy from reach its goals at any price,” he said.
Assad’s statement came during his meeting with an Iranian delegation led by Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission. Boroujerdi also met with the Syrian vice president Farouk al-Sharaa, ending widespread rumors that he defected has few weeks ago.
On the ground, at least 151 people have been killed across Syria Sunday by forces loyal to president al-Assad, the Local Coordination Committees (LCC) said. The activist group said more than half of the killings took place in Damascus and its suburbs. The Syrian army was accused of committing a massacre in the town of Darya outside the capital when 300 bodies were found on Saturday, a day after the town was retaken by government forces. Graphic images emerged on Sunday of dozens of bodies sprawled in the streets and lined up at a graveyard. In the most grisly video, posted by opposition media outlet Sham, rows of bodies were seen at a graveyard in the town of Darya southwest of Damascus, many of them bloodied and disfigured, with large patches of skin charred black. This raises the death toll to more 450 people killed in the last 48 hours, including dozens of women children, according to LCC, making it one of the highest death tolls since the uprising against the rule of al-Assad broke out in March 2011.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has signaled that a new initiative to solve the Syrian crisis will emerge within a few days: “These days, we are focusing on a meeting for the Syrian crisis that will bring Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran together.” “We are in close contact with the new administration in Egypt. The Egyptian president and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) proposed a meeting, and we are looking positively at it. We are doing our best,” added Davutoğlu.
Significantly, Egyptian President Morsi publicly called last week for a new diplomatic effort with --- contrary to the wishes of the US and some European states --- the involvement of Iran. Davutoğlu's statement points to co-ordination with Cairo. Now, will the US and Europe agree to the shift in the diplomatic approach? We will be watching for signals from Washington and from Tehran, where Morsi is at the Non-Aligned Movement's summit.

China's response came through an editorial of its official news agency Xinhua: The tone is quite direct:

Once again, Western powers are digging deep for excuses to intervene militarily in another conflict-torn Middle East country, as U.S. President Barack Obama warned Monday that the use of chemical weapons by Syria’s government would change his “calculus.”
With the hypocritical talks of eliminating weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and protecting civilians in Libya still ringing in the ears, such “red line” threats seem to have almost become a signal for the United States and some of its Western allies to sharpen their weapons before exercising interventionism.

The Xinhua writer goes on with a general description and critique of “western” foreign policy behavior:

Apart from being ineffective to bring real peace, military interventions by the United States and its Western partners are always interests-driven and highly selective.
It is not difficult to find that, under the disguise of humanitarianism, the United States has always tried to smash governments it considers as threats to its so-called national interests and relentlessly replace them with those that are Washington-friendly.Right now, as conflicts between government troops and rebel forces still rage in Syria, nations around the world should continue to build on the progress that has been achieved by outgoing international envoy Kofi Annan and his team.
Any attempt to scrap the chances for a political settlement and to turn Syria into the next testing ground for Western weapons must be guarded against and ruled out.Read the full story here.