Geneva: An initial team of UN ceasefire monitors is due to arrive in Syria on Sunday evening and will be deployed on Monday in an effort to keep the peace plan on track, the spokesman for international mediator Kofi Annan said.
The six-person advance team will be joined by two dozen more observers in coming days in line with a UN Security Council resolution adopted on Saturday authorising the deployment of up to 30, Ahmad Fawzi said.
However, the Syrian government said on Sunday it had a right to refuse monitors depending on their nationalities. Government spokeswoman and presidential adviser Bouthaina Shaaban also said the government could not be responsible for the safety of the monitors unless it was involved in "all steps on the ground".
Four days after a ceasefire was meant to come into effect, Syrian government forces shelled the city of Homs on Sunday, resident opposition activists and a rights activist said.
"Of course we are hoping that the process holds together until the observers get on the ground," Fawzi told Reuters in Geneva.
Annan, joint special envoy of the United Nations and Arab League, brokered a six-point peace plan that was accepted in late March by the government of President Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian armed opposition to end 13 months of violence.
However, Syrian troops and their heavy weaponry did not withdraw from towns as required under the plan before the fragile ceasefire took effect last Thursday at dawn, and there have been some reports of violence and shelling since.
The idea is for the unarmed monitors to deploy as soon as possible - provided their security is guaranteed - to start supervising truce compliance while Annan presses ahead with other steps including the start of political dialogue.
In blue helmets on Monday
"The first batch of six UN observers arrives tonight, they will be on the ground in blue helmets tomorrow (Monday)," Fawzi said.
The six, to be led by a Moroccan colonel, will arrive from New York, he said.
"They will be quickly augmented by up to 25 to 30 from the region and elsewhere," Fawzi said. He expected the whole advance team to be in Syria "as soon as possible and within a few days at most".
He declined to identify the Moroccan colonel or name the countries contributing observers from peacekeeping operations already deployed in the region.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, speaking in Geneva on Saturday night after private talks with Annan, said that he would make proposals by next Wednesday regarding the full observer mission, expected to number about 250. Their deployment requires a second Security Council resolution.
The plan by Annan, a former UN secretary-general and Nobel Peace Prize winner, calls for delivery of humanitarian assistance, the release of prisoners including those involved in peaceful protests, and freedom of movement for journalists to work throughout Syria.
The UN estimates Assad's forces have killed more than 9,000 people in the uprising. Syrian authorities say foreign-backed militants have killed more than 2,500 soldiers and police.
UN aid agencies have been largely shut out from Syria - where the International Committee of the Red Cross is the only international agency to deploy aid workers - and the government currently restricts access for most foreign reporters.
"We hope to move forward on the other five points," Fawzi said. "We need to start the political dialogue. We are continuing to reach out to the opposition forces to get organised so they can form one negotiating party."
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