Syria negotiates with AL over observer mission
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Xinhua, December 5, 2011
As Damascus is still negotiating with the Arab League (AL) over the Arab observer mission to monitor the Syrian unrest on the ground, some opposition figures urged the government to allow in the mission to avoid the internationalization of the months-long crisis.
Earlier Sunday, Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdisi told Xinhua by phone that there is "a mutual exchange of messages" between Syria and the AL pertaining the observer mission.
His remarks came just one day after the AL gave Damascus a new deadline to allow in observers amid warnings of internationalizing the Syrian issue if Damascus refused the mission.
There is "a mutual exchange of messages between Syria and the AL to reach a certain vision to facilitate the mission of observers in Syria and preserve Syrian interests and sovereignty," said Makdisi.
"The policy of sanctions is unwarranted and targets the Syrian people," he said, expressing hope that these policies would be reviewed so as not to exacerbate the situation.
He said Syria is seeking to end the crisis, which requires a deep understanding to the reality of the Syrian situation and not to build policies on misleading media reports, stressing that the Syrian crisis could be solved internally "far from the international interventions."
Meanwhile, the opposition "Building the Syrian State" movement said Sunday that the Syrian authorities must accept the AL observer mission protocol because "the observers' task is just monitoring."
In a statement faxed to Xinhua, the opposing current said that it's not shameful for the government to sign the AL protocol if it wants to prove its intentions against the internationalization that would drag the country to grinding civil war.
Mohammad Habash, a parliamentarian who heads the "Third Way" movement in the country which advocates a middle-of-the-road opinion between the government and the opposition, told Xinhua that the government should allow in observers for the hotspot areas in Syria.
He believes that accepting the Arab initiative would prevent the internationalization of the Syrian crisis.
"We should push as much as we can to make the AL intuitive a success and support all efforts in that regard so as the Arab observers could reach the flash points in Syria to stop the bloodshed," he said.
The observer mission to Syria would stop the bloodshed and "thus we can reach the hoped-for conciliation," Habash added.
Allowing in the observers is the solo exit to this crisis, he said, adding that the Arab initiative must not die because it's the only realistic solution that loomed on the horizon to solve the Syrian crisis.
On Saturday, the AL ministerial committee gathered in the Qatari capital of Doha to review recommendations by its technical committee tasked with working out the final details of the sanctions on Syria.
The committee approved a travel ban for high-ranking Syrian officials including Deputy Defense Minister Assef Shawkat and a freeze of their assets. It also decided to suspend the AL's cooperation with Syria's central bank, halting funding for projects in the country.
Also at the meeting, the ministers imposed an arms embargo on Syria and decided to reduce flights between Syria and other Arab countries by half starting Dec. 15.
Moreover, they asked Arab Red Crescent societies to draw up an emergency plan to meet the humanitarian needs of the Syrian people.
The committee said as President Bashar al-Assad had repeatedly ignored the AL's initiative to end violence, it gave Damascus until Sunday to sign the initiative on the observer mission.
Earlier Sunday, the Syrian cabinet held an emergency session chaired by Prime Minister Adel Safar, during which the government endorsed the suspension of the Free Trade Zone agreement between Syria and Turkey that was announced by the foreign ministry on Thursday, according to the official SANA news agency.
The suspension came in retaliation to the sanctions announced by the Turkish foreign minister at a press conference regarding Syria Wednesday.
Turkey's foreign minister announced on Wednesday halting a loan by the Turkish Import and Export Bank to finance Syrian infrastructure projects, suspending relations between the central banks in both countries, freezing the financial assets of the Syrian government and halting deals of financial credits in Syria in addition to suspending the Higher Strategic Cooperation with Syria.
The Turkish sanctions came as part of many sanction measures imposed by the European Union, the United States and the AL last week.
The imposed sanctions aimed to further cripple the Syrian economy in order to tighten the squeeze on President al-Assad's government over its alleged bloody crackdown on protesters.
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) adopted Friday a new resolution condemning human rights violations committed by the Syrian authorities against anti-government protesters.
The UNHRC has recently said that Syrian forces have committed crimes against humanity. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said at a news conference that 4,000 people were estimated to have died in Syria's unrest so far this year. She warned that a civil war is likely to take place in the country.
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