US asks China to press Assad on Syria violence

WASHINGTON: The United States on Tuesday called on China to use its influence to press Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to end more than a year of bloodshed as senior US and Syrian envoys visited Beijing.

"Our hope is that the Chinese will do what they can and use their influence to encourage the Assad regime to end the violence," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters.

Washington also hopes that China will encourage Assad to comply with a peace plan negotiated by former UN chief Kofi Annan, who resigned on August 2 as the special envoy to Syria, blaming weak support for his efforts.

State Department number three Wendy Sherman held talks in Beijing on Tuesday as part of a new dialogue set up between the Pacific powers to discuss Middle East policy.

Sherman, the under secretary of state for political affairs, also met with Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and will hold talks Wednesday with China's envoy to the six-nation dialogue on Iran's contested nuclear program, Nuland said.

China said Monday that Bouthaina Shaaban, a special adviser to Assad, would visit Beijing to hold talks with Yang and that it was considering inviting members of the Syrian opposition to visit in the future.

China has joined Russia in vetoing three UN Security Council resolutions aimed at pressuring Assad. China's communist leaders are deeply uncomfortable with what they see as Western intervention in other countries' internal affairs.

Sherman will afterward travel to Russia, the main diplomatic and military supporter of Assad. Syria has been torn by more than a year of violence that activists say has claimed more than 23,000 lives.

The United States often presses China on international issues, saying that the world's second largest economy has responsibilities commensurate with its growing size.

In Sherman's talks, the United States "welcomed China playing a more active and positive role in world affairs," a State Department statement said. (AFP)