OSLO // The international community has to do more to isolate the Syrian regime after the latest "brutal and sickening" massacre in the country, British Prime Minister David Cameron said today.
"We need to do much more to isolate Syria, to isolate the regime, to put the pressure on and to demonstrate that the whole world wants to see a political transition from this illegitimate regime to actually see one that can take care of its people," Mr Cameron told reporters during a quick stop in Oslo.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said pro-regime militiamen armed with guns and knives swept through the village of Al Kubeir in central Syria Wednesday, slaughtering 87 people, including women and children.
The exiled opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) had given an initial estimate of 100 dead, while the Syrian government on today adamantly denied responsibility for the killings.
"If these reports are true, it is yet another brutal and sickening attack, and frankly the international community has got to condemn absolutely this regime and President Assad for what he is doing," Mr Cameron said.
"I think that leaders of different countries in the world, countries that sit around the UN Security Council table, they need to sit down today, discuss this issue and none of them should be able to hide from the facts," he said, in an apparent reference to Russia and China.
The two countries have consistently opposed international intervention in Syria, but they face growing pressure to change their stance after 15 months of conflict in which more than 13,500 people are said to have died.
The United States has meanwhile endorsed an Arab proposal to invoke the UN Charter's tough Chapter VII, while refraining from supporting its powers to initiate military intervention.
