AL to seek UN support for Syria initiative
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Xinhua, January 27, 2012
Arab League (AL) chief Nabil al-Arabi and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al-Thani are poised to head to the UN to seek support for an AL initiative on Syria.
"Arabi and Thani will go to the United Nations on Saturday," Adnan al-Khodair, head of the AL's monitoring operations room in Cairo, told Xinhua.
"They will hold a meeting with the Security Council on Sunday or Monday to seek ratification of the Arab initiative on Syria," he said, referring to the plan hammered out by Arab foreign ministers last Sunday.
The initiative stipulated the formation of a national unity government that should be formed within two months with the participation of the opposition.
The national unity government, according to the plan, then should prepare for free presidential and parliamentary elections under the supervision of Arab countries and the international community.
The plan also asks the Syrian government to prepare a draft constitution which will be approved through a popular referendum. It also urges Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to invest his first deputy with full powers to enable the national unity government to act in the transitional period.
Meanwhile, the Arab foreign ministers also decided to extend the observers' mission in Syria, provide them with technical and financial assistance and cooperate with the secretary-general of the United Nations in this regard.
The Syrian government dismissed the initiative as "flagrant interference in Syria's affairs," but accepted to extend the observers' mission.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said Tuesday that the AL's new plan is the last part of their scheme to internationalize the Syrian issue by referring it to the UN Security Council.
Meanwhile, the new AL solution to the Syrian crisis also triggered public protests in the country.
On Thursday, hundreds of thousands of people thronged main squares across Syria to show their solidarity with the embattled president and their rejection of the AL plan.
"We are here to denounce the AL decision that came in compliance with the Western schemes against our country," Malek Ali, 30, told Xinhua during a rally at Saba'a Bahrat square in the Syrian capital of Damascus.
Meanwhile, violence across the country shows no sign of abating.
At least eight people were killed and 20 others injured, including children, in separate attacks carried out by "armed groups" across Syria on Thursday, the state-run SANA news agency reported.
Also on Thursday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed his deep concern over the death of the secretary-general of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, and called on the Syrian government to bring the perpetrators to justice.
"The secretary-general is deeply concerned by the killing yesterday of Dr. Abd-al-Razzaq Jbeiro, secretary-general of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, and extends his condolences to his family and colleagues," said a statement released by Ban's spokesman Martin Nesirky.
Jbeiro was shot by armed men Wednesday in northern Khan Sheikhoun city, just outside Idlib. Jbeiro was in charge of Red Crescent operations in Idlib province.
Damascus said that the turmoil in Syria was plotted by terrorists and foreign-backed armed gangs. It said more than 2,000 army and security personnel had been killed since the unrest began last March, while the United Nations put the death toll in the country at more than 5,400.
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