Arab League wants UN peacekeepers in Syria

13 Feb 2012, 8:07 am   -   Source: AAP
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The Arab League is working to create a joint UN peacekeeping force for Syria to end the 11-month-old crisis that has killed more than 5000 people.

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The Arab League has called for the UN Security Council to create a joint peacekeeping force for Syria, the latest effort by the regional group to end the 11-month-old crisis that has killed more than 5000 people.

The new effort was spelled out in a resolution adopted by League foreign ministers meeting in Cairo on Sunday. However, Syria immediately rejected the idea.

Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal conveyed the League's deep frustration with Syria by telling delegates at the start of the meeting that it was no longer appropriate for the 22-member League to stand by and watch the bloodshed in Syria.

"Until when will we remain spectators?" he said. "It is a disgrace for us as Muslims and Arabs to accept" the bloodshed in Syria, he said.

Syria's state news agency said the regime rejected the Arab League decisions, which were taken without a Syrian representative present.

Syrian Ambassador to the Arab League and to Egypt, Ahmed Youssef, was quoted as saying that Qatar and Saudi Arabia 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 President Bashar al-Assad agreed to in December, then sent in monitors to check whether the Syrian regime was complying. But when it became clear Assad's regime was flouting the terms of the agreement and killings went on, the League pulled the observers out 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 its own 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 February 24 meeting in Tunisia of the Friends of Syria group, which includes the US, its European allies and Arab nations working to end the uprising against Assad's authoritarian rule.

The creation of the group came 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.

That resolution also would have demanded that Assad halt the crackdown on dissent and implement the Arab League peace plan that calls for him to hand over power to his vice-president and allow creation of a unity government to clear the way for elections.

Elaraby told the Cairo meeting that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov wrote him a letter on Saturday that conveyed what he called a partial change in Moscow's stand on the Syrian crisis.

He quoted Lavrov as saying Russia would agree to a joint UN-Arab League peacekeeping force.

The League also said it wanted to provide the opposition groups with political and material support.

It called for a halt to all diplomatic contacts with Syria and for referring officials responsible for crimes against the Syrian people to international criminal tribunals. It urged a tightening of trade sanctions previously adopted by the League but not been fully implemented.

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

"The brutality of the Assad regime is unacceptable and has to end," he told Fox News Sunday. The US is pursuing "all avenues that we can" and that "there is no question that this regime will come to an end. The only question is when," he said.

Late on Saturday, al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri threw the terror network's support behind Syrian rebels trying to topple Assad, raising fears that Islamic extremists are exploiting the uprising that began peacefully but is quickly transforming into an armed insurgency.

The regime has long blamed terrorists for the revolt, and al-Qaeda's endorsement creates new difficulties for Western and Arab states trying to figure out a way to help force Assad out of power.

Elaraby said he had accepted the resignation of General Mohammed Ahmed Al-Dabi, the head of the Syrian observer mission, who will be replaced by former Jordanian foreign minister Abdul-Illah al-Khatib.

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