Secretary of State Hillary Clinton endorsed an Arab League peace plan for Syria at today's United Nations Security Council meeting in New York.

The proposal calls for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down in an effort to resolve the political crisis in Syria, which, according to the UN, has claimed more than 5,000 lives since it began a year ago.

The Security Council began talks last week on the new Arab-European draft resolution. Two permanent Security Council members, Russia and China, have spoken out against the Arab League plan, backed by France and Great Britain. The Syrian government has rejected the proposal on the grounds of sovereignty infringement.