If confirmed this would be the first Syrian ambassador to defect from the regime of Bashar al-Assad since the violence began in mid-march last year. Until now, only an army general, and defense official have defected.

Fares’ defection comes five days after Manaf Tlass, son of former Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass, and once a close friend of Syrian President Bashar Assad defected and took refuge in Paris.

According to remarks by the Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh on the news of the defection he said he was not aware about this development, according to Al Jazeera.

Nawaf Faras has served as the Syrian ambassador in Baghdad since September 2008.

Earlier, in a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Assad’s top opponent and new Kurdish leader of the Syrian National Council, Abdel Basset Sayda said that “the events in Syria are not disagreements between the opposition and the government but a revolution,” comparing the events in his country to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Sayda sought to persuade Russia to stop supporting for the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, saying there was no hope of a political transition.

Russia is the main ally of Assad and has fiercely resisted international action against the Damascus government by rejecting two rounds of UN Security Council sanctions as well as calls for the use of armed force.

On Tuesday, Russia dispatched a destroyer-class warship to Syria, a source in the Russian Navy told Reuters, and another military source was quoted as saying four more Russian ships were en route to the violence-torn country.

Russia, China, the United States, the United Kingdom and France have voiced support for the plan, which will be reviewed at a June 30 conference of foreign ministers in Geneva, even though, Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister, said that he is in favor of changes that might lead to “national agreement”, but warned that Moscow “will not support  an external solution”. Assad’s fate, he added, must be decided “by the Syrian people”.

Meanwhile, Syrian opposition groups said they would reject the plan if it did not explicitly ban President Bashar al-Assad in any “unity government”.

Annan’s new proposal will call for multi-party elections, and an offer for “significant” international funding to rebuild war-torn Syria, according to a blueprint obtained by the AFP news agency.

According to Annan the transitional government “could include members of the present government and the opposition and other groups, but would exclude from government those whose continued presence and participation would undermine the credibility of the transition and jeopardise stability and reconciliation”, leaving unclear which officials should be excluded from the transitional government.

Foreign ministers from Turkey, Kuwait, Qatar and Iraq are also set to attend the meeting. Iran, Assad’s other close ally, was excluded – a condition set down by the US – as was Saudi Arabia, which has supported the Syrian opposition, according to Al Jazeera.

Syria’s state television SANA reported on Thursday that two explosions rocked a court complex in central Damascus, wounding three people and damaging 20 cars.

Meanwhile, at least 70 people were killed Thursday in Syria, mainly in areas near Damascus, according to opposition activists.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) expressed concerns on Thursday regarding some 1000 Syrian civilians trapped iin the central province of Homs.

It said that a joint team from the ICRC and Syrian Arab Red Crescent was prevented from entering the worst-hit areas on Wednesday in Homs.