EU agrees to end Syria arms embargo

Latest developments

— In Geneva, the U.S., Turkey and Qatar persuaded the U.N.’s top human rights body to hold another urgent debate on the civil war in Syria, the first such session in more than a year, as diplomats pushed Monday for more international pressure to hold accountable those responsible for killing thousands of civilians. U.N. Human Rights Council President Remigiusz Henczel said the debate will be Wednesday, and officials said negotiations have already begun on a resolution focused on the violence in the Syrian town of Qusair, near Lebanon.

— In Syria, heavy fighting was reported Monday in the western town of Qusair, the target of a regime offensive that began May 19, and around the nearby Dabaa military base. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition group, said regime troops and allied fighters from the Lebanese militia Hezbollah captured the nearby town of Hamidiyeh, tightening their siege of Qusair.

— Yara Abbas, a Syrian television journalist well-known for her pro-government dispatches from the front lines of the nation’s raging civil conflict was killed Monday outside the battleground city of Qusair, the state press agency said. Abbas, who often reported with a flack vest and helmet while accompanying Syrian troops, fell to “terrorists’ gunfire,” said the official Syrian Arab News Agency. She was in her mid-20s.

Associated Press

After a contentious debate over policy toward Syria, the European Union agreed Monday to let its embargo on arms shipments to Syrian rebels — and the Syrian government — expire at the end of the month, possibly the best news that the beleaguered forces battling to topple President Bashar Assad have had since their uprising began 26 months ago.

William Hague, the British foreign secretary, said there was “no immediate decision to send arms” to the rebels, in a tweet reported by the British Broadcasting Corp. Britain and France had been the main backers of an end to the embargo, which expires Thursday, while Austria, Sweden and the Czech Republic were among those objecting.

Meanwhile, in a dramatic show of support for the rebels, Sen. John McCain visited Syria earlier Monday from southern Turkey and met with Salim Idriss, the defected Syrian general who is head of the opposition’s Supreme Military Council, the group through which the United States and other nations have agreed to route all military and non-lethal assistance.

McCain spokeswoman Rachael Dean confirmed the Republican made the visit but declined further comment.

Still, it remained to be seen if those morale-boosting developments could overcome the deep disarray that engulfed a conference of leaders of Syria’s political opposition, who completed a fifth day of meetings without agreement on a range of issues, including expanded membership and what to do about a proposed peace conference tentatively set for next month. The meeting has run so far beyond its expected length that the luxury hotel where the Syrian Opposition Coalition has been holding its conference demanded that the delegates vacate their rooms for other guests.

Meanwhile, in Paris, Secretary of State John Kerry met his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, to go over plans for a peace conference on Syria next month in Geneva. Syria announced Sunday that it would send a delegation to the Geneva talks, but spoke of starting a “dialogue” with rebels rather than negotiating a transition to a post-Assad regime, as the U.S. has demanded.

Lavrov told reporters organizing the conference was “a tall order” but said “the chances for success are there.” According to Western diplomats, Russia insists that there be neither agenda nor preconditions for the talks and refuses even to ask the U.N. Security Council to enforce the outcome of the conference.