| |
| Local Editor | |
 As it announced a crisis talks over Syria on Thursday, the Arab League rejected changes proposed by Damascus to its proposal to send an observer mission there."The Arab League council will hold an extraordinary meeting on Thursday, at the level of foreign ministers, and will be presided by Qatar," Arab League Deputy Secretary General Ahmed Bin Hilli told reporters. He said that the ministerial committee on Syria -- comprising Qatar, Egypt, Oman, Sudan, Algeria and Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi -- would meet at the Arab League headquarters on Wednesday to prepare for Thursday's meeting. Few hours earlier, the Arab bloc rejected amendments suggested by Damascus to a document outlining plans for a 500-strong delegation to monitor the unrest in Syria, an Arab League source said. "It was agreed that the amendments and appendices proposed by the Syrian side affect the core of the document and would radically change the nature of the mission which is to oversee the implementation of the Arab plan to end the crisis in Syria and protect Syrian civilians," the League said in a statement. The pan-Arab group, which did not release details of the amendments proposed by Damascus, said it had notified Syria of its decision. The statement said the Arab League had tasked Arabi to hold further talks with the Damascus government in a bid to have it sign the document on the observers within three days. |
| |
| Local Editor | |
 Syrian Foreign Minister said on Sunday that Damascus didn’t like to fight; however, "if the battle is imposed on us, we will fight”."We hope (the battle) will not be imposed on us... the problem in Syria can only be solved by the Syrians themselves", Muallem told a news conference in Damascus. "If the battle is imposed on us, we will fight”, he went on to elaborate comments by President Bashar al-Assad published on Sunday, that he was ready to fight and die for Syria. Muallem slammed members of the Arab League which he accused of working towards taking the Syrian issue to the United Nations Security Council. "There is no room for hasty decisions, but rational thinking is needed because there are some parts of the Arab world which are using the Arab League as a tool to reach the Security Council," he said. Turning to the issue of an Arab League threat to impose sanctions after the expiry of a deadline for Damascus to honor an agreement with the 22-nation bloc to end the unrest, Muallem brushed it off. "We in Syria do not consider that the deadline is the important issue; the content is the important issue; and to reach an agreement with the Arab League is what counts," he said. Muallem also dismissed as "wishful thinking" a warning by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that his country risked descending into civil war. "When Mrs Clinton says the opposition is well-armed... it is, as they say in English, 'wishful thinking'," Muallem said. Clinton warned on Friday that Syria was at the risk of a civil war. |
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
No comments:
Post a Comment