By RICK GLADSTONE and ANDREW ROTH
Syria's ambassador to Iraq was reported to have defected on Wednesday, which if confirmed would be the second prominent defection from President Bashar al-Assad's government in less than a week.
A high-ranking general in the elite Republican Guard, Manaf Tlass, a friend of Mr. Assad and the son of a former defense minister, fled Syria last Thursday.
The defection of the diplomat, Nawaf Fares, would be the first of a serving ambassador in 17 months of unrest. He was appointed to the Baghdad post four years ago and, like General Tlass, was a member of a privileged Sunni elite in a Syrian government dominated by Mr. Assad's minority Alawite sect.
Mr. Fares was described at the time of his appointment as a well-connected statesman whose family was rooted partly in the Sunni tribal society of Iraq's Anbar province, which extends to Syria's eastern desert.
His defection was first reported by Al Jazeera in an unsourced dispatch. Burhan Ghalioun, a member of executive bureau and former leader of the Syrian National Council, the anti-Assad opposition group, corroborated the report on the sidelines of a news conference in Moscow, where a council delegation was talking to Foreign Ministry officials about the Syrian conflict.
"We welcome the defection of the Syrian ambassador to Iraq," Mr. Ghalioun said. "We have called upon high ranking officials whether in the military or in the diplomatic service to defect from this regime and join the revolution of dignity."
There was no confirmation from either Iraq or Syria that Mr. Fares had defected. Syria's United Nations ambassador, Bashar Jaafari, appeared to dismiss it. "This was broadcast by Al Jazeera. I don't trust Al Jazeera," he told reporters.
But Ayad Allawi, a prominent Sunni politician in Iraq and a former interim prime minister, said in a Twitter post: "Reliable sources have informed me of the defection of Nawaf Fares, the Syrian Ambassador to Iraq."
Russia, the Syrian government's most powerful foreign supporter, has begun pressuring Mr. Assad to talk with adversaries. It invited the anti-Assad delegation to the Kremlin and has restricted shipments of new weapons to the Syrian armed forces.
But some members of the visiting delegation to Moscow said they saw little reason to believe that Russia will shift from its opposition to foreign intervention.
Word of the reported defection came as Kofi Annan, the special representative to Syria from the United Nations and Arab League, was briefing the Security Council by video connection from Geneva on his latest flurry of diplomacy to resolve the conflict, which by some estimates has left as many as 17,000 people dead.
The Security Council must decide by July 20 whether to extend the mandate of 300 monitors in Syria assigned to observe implementation of the peace plan announced by Mr. Annan more than three months ago. The Syrian government and its antagonists have ignored the plan, and the work of the monitors was suspended in mid-June.
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