CAIRO, January 18, 2012 (AFP)
CAIRO, January 18, 2012 (AFP)
A Qatari proposal to dispatch Arab troops to Syria could be discussed at a meeting of Arab League foreign ministers over the weekend but is not on the agenda, a bloc official said on Wednesday.
Adnan Khodeir, the Syria chief of operations for the League, told reporters that the only item on the agenda on Sunday is a report to be submitted by the head of Arab observers in unrest-hit Syria and whether the mission will continue.
Doha’s call to send Arab troops to Syria “is not on the agenda but any country that wishes can bring up the issue.”
“What we are talking about now at the Arab League is whether there will be a new approach concerning the observer mission,” which has come under heavy criticism, he added.
An Arab League task force on Syria will meet Saturday in Cairo to examine a report by the head of the observer mission on the future of the operation, with Arab foreign ministers gathering to discuss the document the following day.
Syria has flatly rejected Qatar’s call to send Arab troops to the country and on Wednesday Syrian state media accused Doha of arming and financing opponents of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Hamad Ben Khalifa al-Thani, said in a weekend interview that he backs sending Arab troops to Syria, where the regime is using brutal force to crush a 10-month democracy protest movement.
Arab League Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi has also said the idea could come up for discussion on the weekend.
Activists say the observer mission has failed to stop the bloodshed since it deployed on December 26 in Syria, where the regime’s crackdown on protests has cost more than 5,400 lives since March, according to UN estimates.
Khodeir said 17 observer teams are currently deployed in Syria and that the number of monitors could rise to 300 if Arab foreign ministers decide to extend the mission.
Ten observers have left the mission “for personal reasons” and will be replaced on Thursday, he had said late on Tuesday.
Until their arrival, 155 observers are deployed across Syria, including flashpoints Homs, Idlib, Daraa, Hama, Damascus, Deir Ezzor and Latakia, Khodeir had added.
