League Official: Syria Fully Accepts Arab Peace Plan - US: Assad must go - Lavrov: Russia would not allow NATO's military intervention in Libya to be repeated in Syria.

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Syria on Wednesday fully accepted an Arab League plan to end nearly eight months of the unrest, during a ministerial meeting at the organization's Cairo headquarters, a League official said.
"The Syrian delegation accepted the Arab League plan without reservations and in its entirety," the official said.
The peace plan agreed to by Syria, provides for a "complete halt to the violence to protect civilians."
It also calls for the "release of people detained as a result of the recent events, the withdrawal of forces from towns and districts where there have been armed clashes, and the granting of access to the Arab League, and Arab and international media."
The blueprint stipulates that "the Arab ministerial committee (headed by the prime minister of Qatar) will conduct consultations with the government and the various Syrian opposition parties aimed at launching a national dialogue."
The text did not specify a venue for the dialogue, a bone of contention between the government, which insists on Damascus, and the opposition which says it should be outside Syria.
The plan was submitted Sunday to Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem at a meeting in Doha and a reply had been initially due on Monday, but Syria asked for a delay to allow its leadership to mull the proposals.

Syria, AL Reach Agreement on Situation in Syria

Syria and the Arab Ministerial Committee has reached on Tuesday an agreement regarding the final document on situation in Syria. The official announcement in this regard is set to take place at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo on Wednesday.

President Bashar al-Assad met the Arab Ministerial Committee in Damascus last Wednesday as the Arab Initiative on the situation in Syria was reviewed.
The discussions held during the meeting regarding the Syrian crisis were cordial and frank.

Arab League ministers met Syrian officials in Qatar on Sunday to seek a way to end the crisis.
The United States said that if Syria's accepted and implemented the Arab League's proposals it would be "very welcome."
But, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told a briefing in Washington, "we have had a lot of promises of reform and only violence in terms of the action that we have seen from the Assad regime. So let's wait and see: a) whether we really have a deal here and b) whether that deal is implemented."

A Lebanese official with close ties to the government in Damascus said Syria had put forward its own proposals to the Arab League. "The Syrian authorities want the opposition to drop weapons, the Arab states to end their funding for the weapons and the opposition, and an end to the media campaign against Syria," the official told Reuters.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the Arab League proposal offered both sides in Syria the chance to "decide their own future through national dialogue, national reconciliation, peacefully without resorting to violence."

Lavrov, speaking in Abu Dhabi, also said Russia would not allow NATO's military intervention in Libya to be repeated in Syria.

• Syria agreement: How an alliance of Algeria-Iraq (and Iran) defeated the Qatar-Turkey plot?
• US position unchanged: Assad must go

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