Kerry vows not to leave Syria rebels ‘Dangling in the wind’

Secretary of State John Kerry said on Monday that the Obama administration has been considering new steps to increase support for the Syrian opposition and hasten the departure of President Bashar al-Assad and that some of them would be decided at an international conference in Rome this week.

After the Syrian opposition signaled that it would boycott the Rome conference to protest what it sees as negligible help from Western nations, Mr. Kerry called Moaz al-Khatib, the leader of the Syrian opposition coalition, and persuaded him to attend. Vice President Joseph R. Biden called Mr. Khatib later to thank him for agreeing to go and to emphasize the importance of the meeting.

American officials have said that their goal in supporting the Syrian resistance is to build up its leverage in the hope that Mr. Assad will agree to yield power and a political transition can be negotiated to end the nearly two-year-old conflict.

Gen. Selim Idriss, the leader of the Free Syrian Army, the main rebel fighter group, said that a cessation of violence by the government was “the bottom line” for rebels before any talks. In remarks to Al-Arabyia, a Saudi-backed news Web site, he also said, “There needs to be a clear decision on the resignation of the head of the criminal gang Bashar Assad, and for those who participated in the killing of the Syrian people to be put on trial.”