Leaders from emerging powers on Wednesday expressed “deep concern” over the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation in Syria, while tacitly opposing Western calls for Bashar al-Assad to be ousted.

The leaders from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) called for a “Syrian-led political process” to achieve peace through dialogue “that meets the legitimate aspirations of all sections of Syrian society and respect for Syrian independence.”The group also expressed its “opposition to any further militarization of the conflict.” But in an apparent about-face for Russia and China, the BRICS also called for humanitarian workers to be allowed to have unimpeded access to the country. “

We call upon all parties to allow and facilitate immediate, safe, full and unimpeded access to humanitarian organisations to all in need of assistance,” the statement said. “We urge all parties to ensure the safety of humanitarian workers,” the leaders said at the end of a two-day summit.Previously, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad urged the BRICS nations on Wednesday to help “stop the violence” in his country and put an end to the suffering of his people he said is caused by international sanctions. “

I call on the BRICS leaders to work together to immediately stop the violence in Syria in order to guarantee the success of a political solution,” Assad said of the group of emerging powers. “This requires clear international will in order to dry out the terrorists’ resources, and to put an end to their financing and their arming,” Assad said in a letter to South African President Jacob Zuma published by state news agency SANA.“

You, who seek to bring peace, security and justice to today’s troubled world, focus all your efforts on ending the suffering of the Syrian people, which is caused by unjust economic sanctions that are against international law and that directly impact the lives and basic needs of our citizens,” Assad added.The Syria’s opposition chief was “surprised” by a US decision to reject his demand for Nato to provide Patriot missile protection for rebel bastions in the country’s north. “

There is an international will that the revolution does not come out victorious,” Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib, head of the National Coalition, said in Doha, Qatar. “But the people that have defied injustice and tyranny will not stop,” said Khatib, who still acts as the head of the coalition despite announcing his resignation on Sunday.Meanwhile, the opposition opened in Qatar its first “embassy,” a day after opponents of President Bashar al-Assad were given Damascus’s seat at the Arab League.

Opposition chief Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib and Qatari State Minister for Foreign Affairs Khaled al-Attiya inaugurated the representative office dubbed the “Embassy of the Syrian National Coalition”. The original Syrian embassy itself remains closed. Qatar is the most vocal supporter of the Syrian opposition.While, Iran and Russia strongly criticised as a “dangerous precedent” the Arab League’s decision to allocate Syria’s long-vacant seat to the Syrian opposition.Iran’s foreign ministry on Wednesday criticised as a “dangerous precedent” the Arab League’s decision to allocate Syria’s long-vacant seat to the Syrian opposition.“

Handing Syria’s seat to the so-called provisional government is a dangerous precedent by the members of the Arab League,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi was quoted by Iranian media as telling reporters. Salehi said, without elaborating, that continuation of “such mistakes will only add to the problems”.Russia on Wednesday called the Arab League’s decision to award Syria’s seat at the organisation to the anti-regime National Coalition “illegal and indefensible”. “

In terms of international law, the League’s decision on Syria is illegal and indefensible because the government of the Syrian Arab Republic was and is the legitimate representative member-state at the United Nations,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.On the battlefront, Syrian warplanes launched two strikes on Qaboon in northeastern Damascus on Wednesday, as rebels fighting Assad’s regime seized three army posts near the ceasefire line with Israel, a watchdog said.

Elsewhere, rebels seized three small army positions in Quneitra province in southern Syria near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, said the watchdog.In the central city of Homs, the army pressed its campaign against rebel enclaves, pounding the district of Khaldiyeh in the heart of the city, the Observatory added. Wednesday’s violence comes a day after at least 127 people were killed in violence across Syria, the watchdog said - 47 civilians, 55 rebels and 25 soldiers.

The United Nations says that more than 70,000 people have been killed in Syria’s conflict, which erupted in 2011 after an anti-regime revolt morphed into an insurgency when the army unleashed a brutal crackdown against dissent.British Prime Minister David Cameron’s wife on Wednesday visited a refugee camp in Lebanon.”

Young Syrians are having their childhoods smashed to pieces by the conflict,” Samantha Cameron said following a visit to Bekaa Valley, close to the Syrian border, on a trip with London-based charity Save the Children.She added: “As a mother, it is horrifying to hear the harrowing stories from the children I met today. No child should ever experience what they have.”