UK ‘will not provide troops for UN peacekeeping mission to Syria’

Following Sunday’s Arab League meeting, Mr Hague said he welcomed the establishment of the Group of Friends of Syria, which is expected to include exiled opposition leaders.

But he said any peacekeeping force could only be sent in once President Bashar Assad had ended his brutal military crackdown against civilians.

Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt said Britain would not be providing troops for a peacekeeping mission in Syria.

“We believe that the forces that are deployed should not be Western and we would look to Arab League and other countries to make up a peacekeeping force,” he told BBC Radio 4’s The World At One.

Mr Hague said: “We will discuss urgently with the Arab League and our international partners the proposals for a joint AL/UN peacekeeping force.

“Such a mission could have an important role to play in saving lives, providing the Assad regime ends the violence against civilians, withdraws its forces from towns and cities and establishes a credible ceasefire.”

Mr Hague said “significant steps” were taken at Sunday’s Arab League meeting to increase the “diplomatic and economic isolation” faced by the Syrian regime.

He said the UK would play a “very active part” in the new Group of Friends of Syria, which has been established to increase political and financial support to opposition leaders. The group will meet on February 24.

Syrian rebels have repelled a push by government tanks into a key central town held by forces fighting against Assad’s regime, an activist group said yesterday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said an attempt yesterday to storm Rastan left at least three soldiers dead. Rastan has been held by the rebels since late January.

Calls to the town’s residents are not getting through. The telephone lines appear to have been cut as they usually are during military operations.

On Sunday, Saudi Arabian foreign minister Saud Al-Faisal conveyed the League’s frustration with Syria by telling delegates it was no longer appropriate for the League to stand by and watch the bloodshed in Syria. “Until when will we remain spectators?” he said.

The Arab League has been at the forefront of regional efforts to end 11 months of bloodshed in Syria but President Assad’s regime is unlikely to accept any peacekeeping force.