Arab League wants UN peacekeepers in Syria

Monday, February 13, 2012

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) — The Arab League yesterday called for the UN Security Council to create a joint peacekeeping force for Syria and urged Arab states to sever all diplomatic contact with President Bashar Assad's regime.

This, in the League's latest effort to bring an end to the violence that has killed more than 5,000 people.

Syria immediately rejected the moves, spelled out in a resolution adopted by League foreign ministers meeting in Cairo.

Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal conveyed the 22-nation League's deep frustration with Syria, telling delegates that it was no longer appropriate to stand by and watch the bloodshed.

"The bloodshed in Syria is a disgrace for us as Muslims and Arabs to accept," he said.

Syria's state news agency said the regime rejected the Arab League decisions, which were taken without a Syrian representative present. Syria's ambassador to the Arab League, Ahmed Youssef, was quoted as saying that Saudi Arabia and Qatar were "living in a state of hysteria after their last failure at the UN Security Council to call for outside interference in Syria's affairs and to impose sanctions on the Syrian people."

The Arab League has been at the forefront of regional efforts to end 11 months of bloodshed in Syria. The group put forward a plan that Assad agreed to in December, then sent in monitors to check whether he was complying. When it became clear that Assad's regime was flouting the terms of the agreement and the killings were continuing, the League pulled out the observers last month.

"The time has come for a decisive action to stop the bloodshed suffered by the Syrian people since the start of last year," Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby told the Arab foreign ministers. "We must move quickly in all directions... to end or break the ongoing cycle of violence in Syria."

The League called for the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution that provides for an immediate ceasefire in Syria, the protection of civilians and overseeing a humanitarian effort for victims of the violence. It demanded that regime forces lift the siege on neighbourhoods and villages and pull troops and their heavy weapons back to their barracks.

It urged Syrian opposition groups to unite ahead of a Feb 24 meeting in Tunisia of the "Friends of Syria" group, which includes the United States, its European allies and Arab nations working to end the uprising against Assad's authoritarian rule.

The group was created after last weekend's veto at the UN by Russia and China of a Western and Arab draft resolution that would have pressured Assad to step down.

Meanwhile, Washington piled more pressure on Syria.

President Barack Obama's chief of staff, Jacob Lew, said it was only a matter of time before Assad's regime collapsed.