Damascus has rejected the Arab League’s call to bring international
peacekeepers into Syria, labeling it a hostile act aimed at undermining
security and stability in the country. An emergency session of foreign ministers of the 22-member Arab
League in Cairo has issued a resolution appealing to the UN to bring
peacekeeping force into Syria. The international contingent, they
insist, should be consisted of UN blue helmets and troops from Arab
countries, “to oversee the implementation of a ceasefire.” Meanwhile, the UN General Assembly has opened debate on Syrian crisis.
The
Arab League Secretary General Nabil El-Arabi proposed to form a new
monitoring group for Syria, consisted of international observers of both
the UN and the Arab League specialists. He also proposed former foreign
minister of Jordan Abdelilah Al-Khatib to be a UN special envoy for
Syria, a diplomat that previously worked as a UN special envoy for
Libya.
Syria's ambassador to Cairo Yusef Ahmed, who did not attend the meeting, said “The Syrian Arab Republic categorically rejects the decisions of the Arab League," reports Xinhua.
Syrian
diplomat believes this resolution mirrors “hysterics” of the Arab
League countries once they failed to secure the UN Security Council's
intervention in Syria's affairs. He said the West planned to "redistribute
the cards in the region, in order to impose a solution to the
Arab-Israeli conflict, resulting in the loss of (Arab) rights and land.”
Meanwhile the EU has backed the Arab League proposal and is urging the UN Security Council to stop the violence in Syria.
“We
welcome these bold decisions and the strong and clear commitment and
leadership that the Arab League is taking to resolve the crisis in
Syria,” said Michael Mann, spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.
Moscow
says it needs to fully investigate the details of the proposed
operation. Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov stated that a
peacekeeping mission can only be deployed in Syria after Damascus agrees
to it. Another necessary condition, according to Lavrov, is a ceasefire
agreement in the country.
Russia’s deputy foreign minister also
said that Moscow does not rule out taking part in the peacekeeping
operation in Syria if Damascus fully agrees to this mission.
On
Sunday Syrian special forces resumed an assault on armed militia
terrorizing the cities of Homs and Hama. Syrian Ministry of Interior
blames terrorist gangs of shelling military checkpoints, government
buildings and residential quarters. Terrorists have blown up several
private houses in Homs to present it as the result of the governmental
forces’ artillery fire on the city.
The acts of violence in Syria
are not limited to the above mentioned cities only. On Friday a double
terror act in then city of Aleppo in Syria’s north took lives of 28
people, both military and civilians, and left 235 wounded.
The responsibility for the Aleppo blasts has been taken by the so-called Free Syrian Army.
There
is a media blackout in Syria and it is very difficult to tell whether
or not hundreds of people are being killed and wounded in Syria on a
weekly basis, as the activists affiliated with the opposition have a
tendency to claim.
Syrian rebels have also received a really
strong support not just from the Arab League member countries, but from
some truly unexpected sources as well. For example, Osama Bin Laden’s
successor Ayman al-Zawahri called on Muslims to aid the Syrian rebels.
In
the meantime, Washington continues to reprise its “Assad-must-go”
mantra, saying it is only a matter of time before the Assad government
collapses.
Having failed to push an obviously regime change
resolution on Syria in the UN, America is now preparing to pursue its
agenda bypassing the world body and going ahead with intervention into
Syria, as RT’s Gayane Chichakyan reports.
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