الرئيسية
The Arab
League expects the Damascus regime to sign up "soon" to an observer
mission intended to monitor the protection of civilians, the bloc's
number two Ahmed Ben Helli said on Saturday.
"There are positive
signs... I expect the signing will happen soon," Ahmed Ben Helli told
AFP ahead of a meeting of an Arab League ministerial commission in
Qatar.
"It will not be today," he said, before the meeting, which
had originally been scheduled to take place in Cairo alongside a now
indefinitely postponed emergency foreign ministers' meeting.
Announcing
the postponement late on Thursday, Ben Helli said negotiations would
continue with the Syrian government to try to convince it to implement
an Arab plan to end bloodshed which has raged for nine months since it
unleashed a deadly crackdown on anti-government protests.
The Arab
League approved a raft of sanctions against the Damascus authorities on
November 27 to punish their failure to heed an ultimatum to admit the
observers but Syria said on Sunday that it would allow the mission in on
certain conditions.
In a letter to the bloc's secretary general,
Nabil al-Arabi, Foreign Minister Walid Muallem set a number of terms,
notably the withdrawal of the sanctions package.
Ben Helli said on Thursday that the League was still holding talks with Syria on its offer.
On
Friday, hundreds of thousands turned out across Syria for rallies
called under the slogan: "The Arab League is killing us -- enough
deadlines," in protest at the bloc's failure to take a tougher stance.
League expects the Damascus regime to sign up "soon" to an observer
mission intended to monitor the protection of civilians, the bloc's
number two Ahmed Ben Helli said on Saturday.
"There are positive
signs... I expect the signing will happen soon," Ahmed Ben Helli told
AFP ahead of a meeting of an Arab League ministerial commission in
Qatar.
"It will not be today," he said, before the meeting, which
had originally been scheduled to take place in Cairo alongside a now
indefinitely postponed emergency foreign ministers' meeting.
Announcing
the postponement late on Thursday, Ben Helli said negotiations would
continue with the Syrian government to try to convince it to implement
an Arab plan to end bloodshed which has raged for nine months since it
unleashed a deadly crackdown on anti-government protests.
The Arab
League approved a raft of sanctions against the Damascus authorities on
November 27 to punish their failure to heed an ultimatum to admit the
observers but Syria said on Sunday that it would allow the mission in on
certain conditions.
In a letter to the bloc's secretary general,
Nabil al-Arabi, Foreign Minister Walid Muallem set a number of terms,
notably the withdrawal of the sanctions package.
Ben Helli said on Thursday that the League was still holding talks with Syria on its offer.
On
Friday, hundreds of thousands turned out across Syria for rallies
called under the slogan: "The Arab League is killing us -- enough
deadlines," in protest at the bloc's failure to take a tougher stance.