Middle East News

Arab League to meet Thursday as Syria seeks 'clarification'

Nov 20, 2011, 15:40 GMT

A Syrian living in Lebanon salutes a portrait depicting the Syrian President Bashar Assad, during a demonstration in front of the Syrian embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, 20 November 2011. EPA/NABIL MOUNZER

Cairo/Beirut - Arab League foreign ministers are to hold another crisis meeting in Cairo next week on Syria, which on Sunday asked for 'clarifications' on the organization's plan to send its own monitors to the strife-torn country.

The meeting will be the fourth on Syria in November.

On Sunday, the 22-member Arab League said it had rejected a request from Syria to amend its plan to send monitors, in a bid to end the violence in which more than 3,500 people have been killed since March.

The organization's head, Nabil al-Arabi, said that the changes requested by the Syrian government would 'radically change the mission of the Arab monitors to protect civilians in Syria.'

'The League insists on addressing the (Syrian) crisis within an Arab context by working to end the violence and responding to the Syrian people's aspirations for reforms and changes,' he added.

The bloc had given Damascus until Saturday to accept the deal, or face economic sanctions.

The rejection came hours after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad vowed to 'fight and die' in the event of foreign intervention in his country.

'Military intervention will destabilize the region as a whole, and all countries will be affected,' al-Assad told the London-based Sunday Times.

'If they are logical, rational and realistic, they shouldn't do it because the repercussions are very dire,' he said.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said Sunday that Damascus would ask for 'clarifications' from the Arab League on its plan to send monitors to Syria before giving a final reply and making an 'appropriate decision.'

'These clarifications are prompted by concern about our national sovereignty,' al-Moallem told a press conference in Damascus.

He added that the Arab League's plan for such monitors included unclear powers that violated Syria's sovereignty.

Earlier on Sunday, an office of the ruling Baath party in Damascus was hit by rocket propelled grenades, in the first such attack, according to opposition activists.

The attack was carried out by gunmen riding a motorbike, said the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

It added that the wall of the office had been damaged and the unknown assailants fled.

Meanwhile, activists based in Beirut said Syria had tightened security along its borders with Lebanon and Turkey to prevent injured Syrians and defectors from escaping.