The United Nations will send a team of observers to Syria to monitor a tenuous ceasefire in the country and get peace talks started after a unanimous decision Saturday at the Security Council.
It's the first time since the conflict began more than a year ago that the Security Council has agreed on a legally binding resolution dealing with the Syrian crisis that has claimed more than 9,000 lives.
A ceasefire between the Syrian regime and rebels went into effect Thursday, although there are reports of sporadic fire from both sides.
"We hope that in the immediate term, this will open the way to a cessation of brutal violence, and we hope that we'll be able to say to the Syrian people that the time of indiscriminate violence is finally behind it," said France's UN Ambassador Gerard Araud.
But attacks reported in the key city of Homs Saturday "lead to some doubts about the reality of the commitment of the Syrian regime," Araud said.
Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird tweeted his approval of the UN resolution Saturday.
"Glad to see UN Security Council backing for monitors to #Syria. Hope ceasefire holds. Assad must go," Baird said on his @JohnBairdOWN account.
The UN resolution calls for sending an advance team of up to 30 unarmed observers who will contact both sides and report on whether the ceasefire is holding.
The Security Council also intends to expand the observer mission after consultations with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Syrian government of President Bashar Assad, provided the ceasefire holds.
It also calls for "the urgent, comprehensive, and immediate implementation" of international envoy Kofi Annan's six-point peace plan.
Russia and China vetoed two previous attempts to push through a Security Council resolution dealing with Syria calling them one-sided against Assad's government, even as the regime initiated a violent and bloody crackdown on protesters.
Russia is Syria's only real ally outside of the Middle East and accused Western nations of seeking regime change in the embattled country.
The ceasefire is at the centre of Annan's peace plan, which also includes Syrian-led talks to find a political solution to the conflict.
Annan told the council Thursday that Syria failed to keep a commitment to pull troops and heavy weapons out of cities and towns, and the resolution calls on Assad's government to "visibly" implement this commitment.
A spokesman for Annan, Ahmad Fawzi, said that Annan -- an envoy on behalf of the UN and the Arab League - envisions a mission with about 250 observers.
Troops already in the region from Asian, African and South American countries acceptable to Assad's regime could be used for the mission, he said.
The resolution also demands the Syrian government allow people to have unimpeded "freedom of movement and access" to the advance observer team and to the larger mission to follow.
While Russia submitted an alternative text eliminating those assurances, the country's ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, told reporters prior to Saturday's vote Moscow "was satisfied" and would vote in favour of it.
Churkin told the council after the vote that the original resolution is "now more balanced."
Syrian UN Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari told reporters Friday that before any observers can be deployed, there would have to be a technical agreement on how the UN force will operate.
Annan would have to make an independent report on the situation in Syria, and the Syrian government would have to approve the package.
