DAMASCUS COMMITTED TO ANNAN PLAN

Annan who passed on to Iran after completion of his contacts in Damascus qualified his talks with Al Assad as "useful and constructive."

Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Cihad Maqsidi said the Al Assad regime was committed to the 6-article Annan plan and demanded that the opposition also abide by it.

The opposition delegation told the Russian Foreign Minister that the Damascus administration should end its bloody crack-down on civilians and Lavrov said the sides should conform to the consensus reached in Geneva last week.

Russia has also taken an important step, putting out a statement to the effect that Moscow is not going to sell any weapons to Syria until the conflict there has been resolved.

In the meantime, Al Assad who spoke to Germany's Das Erte channel said Saudi Arabia and Qatar supplied weapons to the opposition in his country and Turkey also provided logistic support to the provision of weapons.

Al Assad also said that he was not prepared to step down and would not resign and stressed that what befell the toppled leaders of Libya and Egypt did not frighten him as he had nothing in common with them and what was being experienced in Syria was far different from what had happened in those countries.