Head of UN mission in Syria urges halt to violence
The head of the UN observer mission in Syria on Sunday called on President Bashar Assad and the country's opposition to stop fighting and allow a tenuous cease-fire to take hold.
Maj. Gen. Robert Mood spoke after arriving in the Syrian capital Damascus to take charge of an advance team of 16 UN monitors trying to salvage an international peace plan to end the country's 13-month-old crisis. Under the plan, a cease-fire is supposed to lead to talks between Assad and the opposition on a political solution to a conflict that has killed more than 9,000 people. (AP)
