The United States has accused Russia of "propping up" the Bashar-al-Assad regime in Syria at a time when the international community should be working on a political transition.
The open criticism came from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at a joint press conference with Denmark Foreign Minister Villy Sovndal after their meeting in the Danish capital Copenhagen on Thursday.
Clinton was responding to a question, "with the Russians refusing a budge on Syria and with the country appearing to tip towards civil war, is it now a live option to move beyond the requirement of an explicit U.N. mandate to some sort of action outside of the U.N., is that something the U.S. is considering."
Clinton replied that "we consider all contingencies... plan against everything in order to be prepared in the event that action is called for." But she explained that "right now, we are focused on supporting "(U.N.-Arab League Special Envoy) Kofi Annan, reaching out both inside and outside of Syria, bringing together those who are most directly affected, particularly in the region."
"In the last several days, I've had numerous conversations - I will have many more over the next few days - with particular attention paid on - to the Russians. Because the Russians keep telling us they want to do everything they can to avoid a civil war because they believe that the violence would be catastrophic. They often, in their conversations with me, liken it to the equivalent of a very large Lebanese civil war, and they are just vociferous in their claim that they are providing a stabilizing influence," she told reporters.
"I reject that. I think they are, in effect, propping up the regime at a time when we should be working on a political transition. So I look forward to working with Kofi Annan, with like-minded nations like Denmark and many others, and with the Russians to see if we can't get a way forward," she added.
Separately, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called the situation in Syria "intolerable" and said the United States would continue to work with the international community to get President Assad to step down.
"There's no question that we are very concerned about the atrocities that are taking place in Syria," Panetta told a news conference aboard his plane en route to Singapore on Thursday. "It just makes clear how important it is to remove Assad from power and implement the political reforms that are necessary in that country," he said.
The U.S. will work with others to "take whatever other steps need to be taken in order to make very clear that Assad has to step down," Panetta said.
This includes continuing to put pressure on Russia so that country will use its influence on the regime. "It means continuing to explore every other possible option to try to continue the effort to get Assad to step down..."This is an intolerable situation, we cannot be satisfied with what's going on," Panetta said.
The Pentagon chief expressed the hope that "the international community becomes much more aggressive at deciding what additional steps are necessary."
Panetta did not speak directly about what military steps are possible, but he did allude to further options.
"One thing we do at the Pentagon is we plan for all contingencies, and we've done that here," Panetta said. "I'm not going to go into what we briefed the President on, but suffice to say we are prepared for any contingency or any action we are called on to do," he added.
Assad's troops allegedly massacred thousands of Syrians since an anti-government upsurge broke out last year, the latest being the slaughtering of more than 100 people, mostly women and children, in the city of Houla last week.
For comments and feedback: editorial@rttnews.com