18/09/12

UNITED NATIONS — Hovering over this month’s annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations is the international community’s failure to end the escalating war in Syria that is starting to spill over into a fragile and divided region.

The Syrian conflict has bitterly divided the most powerful members of the Security Council, paralyzing the only U.N. body that can impose global sanctions and authorize military action.

It frustrated former U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan, who quit his high-profile role as special envoy to the country last month, giving reasons that amounted to scathing criticism of world powers for failing to unite to stop the chaos in the Arab state.

There will be a flurry of meetings on the sidelines of the VIP gathering at the General Assembly that begins Sept. 25, including a ministerial meeting of the Security Council’s five veto-wielding members and lots of behind-the-scenes discussions among the more than 130 heads of state and government coming to New York. But frustrated diplomats don’t expect any breakthrough on Syria, and outside observers agree.

This “means we’re heading into a very dark time in Syria — more violence and a slow grinding conflict that’s going to test everyone’s limits on non-intervention,” Andrew Tabler, a senior fellow and Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told The Associated Press in an interview Monday.

“I think it’s the elephant in the room in the sense that it’s a lightning rod issue,” Tabler said. “It’s a crisis the U.N. is unable to deal with. And so, basically what happens is that you’re going to have a lot of speeches … but unless you get the Security Council agreeing I don’t see anything happening.”

Since the Syrian conflict began in March 2011, the division among the five powerful permanent council nations has deepened.

The United States, Britain and France have tried unsuccessfully to get the council to put pressure on President Bashar Assad’s government to halt the fighting and pull back its heavy weapons.

Russia, Syria’s key protector, and China, which is supporting Moscow, are demanding equal pressure on the opposition and say the West’s real goal is regime change, which could lead to a takeover of Syria by Islamist radicals. Russia is the major arms supplier to Syria and has a base in Tartus. It is its only naval base outside the former Soviet Union that serves Russian navy ships on missions to the Mediterranean.

Russia and China have vetoed three Western-backed resolutions, the latest in July which included the threat of non-military sanctions.

France’s U.N. Ambassador Gerard Araud said Monday that the Security Council “has never been as paralyzed as it is today since the end of the Cold War.”

France is now working with the U.S., Britain, Turkey, Arab friends and the Syrian opposition in its fight against the Assad regime, he said.

“It is essential that we support the democratic opposition in Syria,” Araud said. “Some believe it is possible to choose between Assad and the Islamists. We tell them, ‘If you keep blocking, you’ll get Assad and then the Islamists.’”

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said the council’s failure to support efforts by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Annan to end the violence is “reprehensible and has only intensified the suffering of the Syrian people. “

“I am not optimistic in the short term that the dynamic in the council is going to change,” she said. “However, the United States is not allowing that to block our efforts to speed the day when Assad departs, through sanctions and political and nonlethal support for the opposition.”

President Barack Obama has called for Assad to step down, but the United States wants to ensure that whatever government replaces his regime is a democracy that respects the rights of all Syrians, particularly religious minorities and women.

Annan has been replaced with former Algerian foreign minister Lakhdar Brahimi, a highly regarded diplomat and mediator who met Assad in Damascus on Saturday, but gave no indication of a breakthrough.

Many countries are hopeful that Brahimi can get the government and opposition to peace talks, but he has called his mission “nearly impossible.”

He has said he is still holding talks with key players and does not have a plan yet.

“I will go to New York for the occasion of the General Assembly, to meet the Security Council and foreign ministers and representatives of countries that have interest, influence or both concerning Syria,” Brahimi said.

The Security Council has given its support to Brahimi, but its division is so deep now that members couldn’t even agree on a statement last month on the humanitarian crisis. The conflict has left some 3 million Syrians inside and outside the country in need of food and other assistance.

Michael Weiss, research director at the London-based Henry Jackson Society think tank, said no breakthrough is likely at the General Assembly because Russian President Vladimir Putin has done nothing “to repudiate Assad.” Also, he added, Obama is reluctant to intervene in the Middle East as he fights for reelection on a record of ending the U.S. military role in Iraq and setting a 2014 deadline to withdraw from Afghanistan.

“All you are going to see for the next six months or longer is this continuing state of civil war,” Weiss said. “The rebels may assassinate members of the Assad regime, but until they have parity of weaponry and forces, Damascus will not fall.”

The West has hesitated to arm the rebels for fear that costly and lethal equipment could fall into the hands of extremists like al-Qaida, or get lost. The rebels have received weapons delivered via Turkey, Iraq and elsewhere, according to activists and diplomats. Some of the arms, activists say, are purchased with Saudi and Qatari funds.

The Syrian conflict, which began as a protest against four decades of dictatorship by the Assad family, was spawned by the Arab Spring, the pro-democracy wave of uprisings across the Middle East that began when Tunisians rose up in January 2011 against their longtime dictator.

The changes in the Arab world since then are the theme of a ministerial-level meeting of the Security Council on Sept. 26 on the sidelines of the General Assembly speeches.

Germany U.N. Ambassador Peter Wittig, the current Security Council president whose foreign minister will be presiding at that meeting, said “there will be council members who will speak out on Syria.” But he said the focus of the meeting will be the emergence of the Arab League as a key player in the Middle East with “a lot more clout.”

Supporters of a democratic government in Syria — the “Friends of Syria” — are also scheduled to meet on Sept. 28 at a session chaired by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Their last meeting in Paris in July brought together some 100 nations including the U.S., its European and Arab partners, as well as the fractious Syrian opposition, all looking to turn up the heat to force Assad from power.

Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said “Syria will be at or near the top of the agenda at most of the key bilateral meetings.”

There will also be a meeting of foreign ministers and development ministers “to galvanize support for refugees and those displaced within Syria,” he said.

Earlier this month, the United Nations nearly doubled its humanitarian appeal for Syria to $347 million, even though the original appeal for $180 million is only half-funded. The secretary-general has urged donors to increase their contributions.

Another issue certain to make headlines during the General Assembly is the dispute over Iran’s nuclear intentions.

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who insists his country’s nuclear program is peaceful, will address the assembly on Sept. 26. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has accused Iran of trying to build a nuclear arsenal, takes the podium on Sept. 27.

And on that day political directors from the six countries trying to get Iran to suspend its nuclear enrichment program — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — will meet behind closed doors, possibly followed by a ministerial session.

22/08/12

Security Council divisions would prevent the creation of any safe haven in Syria for the growing number of refugees from the country’s civil war, a top UN official said Wednesday.

UN emergency relief coordinator Valerie Amos said about 1.2 million people have taken refuge in schools and other public buildings in Syria and growing numbers were heading for other countries to escape the conflict.

But she said the objections of President Bashar al-Assad’s government and divisions within the 15-nation UN Security Council would prohibit the creation of safe havens as called for by Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

“The Syrian authorities themselves have said that they are against the creation of camps inside Syria,” Amos told reporters, giving an account of a trip to Syria and Lebanon.

“Secondly if you create any kind of camp or safe zone within Syria you have to have some kind of way of making them secure. They have to be policed in some way.”

“That requires a Security Council resolution. I do not see an appetite in the Security Council for any kind of resolution to enable that to happen.”

Earlier this week, Davutoglu called on the United Nations to set up camps inside Syria as he warned his country could not cope with the rising numbers fleeing the 17-month conflict.

Talks inside the Security Council on Syria have come to a virtual standstill following three vetoes by Russia and China of resolutions on the conflict, which activists say has left more than 23,000 dead.

France is organizing an August 30 ministerial meeting at the Security Council on the humanitarian impact of the civil war. It is not yet clear who will attend, though Turkey’s foreign minister is expected to be there.

Davutoglu told the Hurriyet newspaper on Monday that “if the number of refugees increases to 100,000, we will not be able to shelter them in Turkey. We have to welcome them in Syrian territory” under UN auspices.

There are currently more than 70,000 Syrians in Turkey but numbers have surged since Assad’s forces stepped up their onslaught against the northern city of Aleppo.

“I have actually spoken to the Turkish foreign minister about this,” Amos said, insisting that Davutoglu did not say his country would close the border.

“What he said to me was that he felt that Turkey had the capacity to deal with about 100,000 refugees. There is a huge concern about the security impact in Turkey itself.”

“We will continue to talk to Turkey about ways in which we can support their efforts.”

Amos quoted Syrian government figures that 1.2 million people are now living in public buildings and many more are staying with relatives and friends.

She said she was worried about a shortage of donations to an international fund for the estimated 2.5 million people who need help and that there could be a health crisis as pharmaceutical factories have closed down.

“Crucial life-saving medicines are no longer available in the country, so this is a key concern,” she said.

Amos said she was also worried that organizations in Syria could not cope with meeting the needs of the growing army of refugees and displaced.

“I don’t think that the Syrian authorities would agree with me on that, but that is my view,” she said.

17/08/12

lgerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi has not yet officially said whether he will become the international mediator on Syria. (Reuters)

By AL ARABIYA WITH AGENCIES

16/08/12

By By EDITH M. LEDERER

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The Security Council agreed Thursday to end the U.N. military observer mission in Syria in the face of an escalating civil war and back a new liaison office in Damascus to support U.N. and Arab League efforts to end the country’s 18-month conflict.

France’s U.N. Ambassador Gerard Araud, the current Security Council president, said members who have been deeply divided on tackling the conflict were united behind U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s proposal to replace the 300 unarmed observers with a small group of military advisers and political, human rights and civil affairs experts.

Araud said the council agreed that conditions set for possibly extending the observer mission - a significant reduction in violence and an end to the Syrian government’s use of heavy weapons - had not been met and the mission’s mandate would end Sunday.

The mission has been severely limited in its work by the violence in Syria, and members have been mainly confined to their hotels since June 15.

Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, whose country is the most important ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, invited U.N. ambassadors from key nations and regional and international organizations who agreed in June in Geneva on guidelines for a Syrian-led political transition to a meeting Friday at U.N. headquarters in New York.

Churkin told reporters he wants the Geneva action group - along with “important actors” Iran and Saudi Arabia, who are not members - to make “a joint or parallel appeal to all the parties of the Syrian conflict that they end violence as soon as possible by a certain point in time.”

Churkin said the appeal should also urge the government and opposition to appoint representatives “to negotiate towards a political solution, and in particular towards the establishment of a transitional governing body as provided for in the Geneva document.”

In a letter to the council last Friday, Ban said the conditions for extending the observer mission had not been met, but he added that “it is imperative for the United Nations to have a presence in Syria” aside from its humanitarian operation in order to support U.N. and Arab League efforts “in mediating and facilitating a peaceful resolution to the crisis.”

The Security Council initially authorized the 300-strong observer mission to deploy to Syria for 90 days to monitor implementation of a six-point peace plan brokered by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan. The plan was to start with a cease-fire and withdrawal of the government’s heavy weapons and culminate with Syrian-led political talks.

Assad’s government and opposition forces agreed to the plan, but it was never implemented.

Because of the worsening bloodshed and insecurity, the observer mission has been cut by about two-thirds.

U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Edmond Mulet told reporters after briefing the council behind closed doors that the observer mission “will come to an end at midnight Sunday.”

There are currently 101 observers and 72 civilian staff members in Syria, he said. In order to have an orderly departure, the last observers will leave Aug. 24, but they will not do any work after Sunday.

Mulet said discussions are under way on the new U.N. liaison office, which he said has been approved by the Syrian government and will have about 20-30 staff members.

Russia and China have vetoed three Western-backed Security Council resolutions that would have stepped up pressure especially against the Syrian government by threatening sanctions if the fighting didn’t stop.

Frustrated at the escalating conflict and the failure of the Security Council to unite to stop the chaos, Annan announced last month that he was resigning effective Aug. 31.

Mulet said he expected an announcement of a replacement for Annan “very soon.”

On Tuesday, a spokesman for Annan said Syrian authorities have backed former Algerian Foreign Minister Lakhdar Brahimi, a veteran U.N. troubleshooter in hotspots including Afghanistan and Iraq, as his successor, but it was unclear whether Brahimi had accepted the post.

Several U.N. diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because no announcement has been made, said Brahimi wants a signal of support from the council.

Associated Press Writer Ron DePasquale contributed to this report from the United Nations

BEIJING (AFP) - UN chief Ban Ki-moon held talks Wednesday with Chinese President Hu Jintao as he seeks to press Beijing to back tougher action to stop violence in Syria hours ahead of a key Security Council vote.

Ban has already urged China to use its influence to back a peace plan by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, who is calling on the Security Council to order “consequences” for any failure to carry out his six-point plan.

But it will be a difficult task for the UN secretary general to persuade Beijing to back a Western resolution renewing the UN mission in the country that calls for sanctions if the regime does not pull back heavy weapons.

China, one of five veto-wielding members of the Security Council, has twice joined with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s main ally Russia in blocking resolutions critical of Damascus and has repeatedly warned against outside intervention in Syria.

“The life of Syria’s current political leadership can only be determined by the Syrian people,” said the People’s Daily, mouthpiece of the Communist Party, in an editorial on Tuesday.

“This is an internal matter and the international community should respect that.”

Russia has branded as “blackmail” the bid to link renewal of the UN mission to the threat of sanctions, and has pledged to veto the resolution calling for sanctions.

It proposed a new draft on Tuesday which was rejected by Britain, France, the United States, Germany and Portugal, diplomats said. The Russian draft would renew the mission for three months, but would not back it up with international action.

“Barring a last minute surprise, we should now go for a vote on Wednesday and we expect a veto by Russia and China,” said the UN envoy of a Western nation.

The current 90-day UN mission in Syria ends on Friday and if no resolution is passed by then, it would have to shut down this weekend, according to diplomats.

Following talks with Hu, Ban will also meet Vice President Xi Jinping — set to become China’s president next year — as well as top foreign policy advisor Dai Bingguo and Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, diplomats said.

Ban, who is officially in Beijing for a China-Africa summit, has said that international inaction on Syria would be giving “a licence for further massacres”.

In Syria on Tuesday, troops blasted Damascus neighbourhoods with helicopter gunships and tank fire, witnesses said, after rebels announced an escalation of their battle for control of the capital.

Fighting between Assad’s forces and rebels of the Free Syrian Army has raged in Damascus since Sunday, with some activists saying it marked a “turning point” in the 16-month revolt against the regime.

Annan and Ban have both called for the Security Council to impose “consequences” if Assad and the Syrian opposition fail to carry out Annan’s peace plan.

Russia insists that diplomatic pressure is enough. According to diplomats, President Vladimir Putin spoke with China’s Hu at the weekend and the two agreed to oppose sanctions.

Russia’s deputy UN envoy, Igor Pankin (right), says the resolution was sent to the council’s other 14 members ahead of a briefing on July 11 by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan on efforts to revive his peace plan.

A member of the Free Syria Army walks past a destroyed Syrian forces tank in the town Atareb in northern Aleppo province

(CNN) — Despite the escalating violence in Syria that led to the suspension of monitoring activities, the United Nations can continue to play a crucial role in the embattled country, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says in a report to be presented to the Security Council.

An advance copy of the report, which is circulating among Security Council members, was obtained by CNN ahead of a Wednesday briefing on Syria to the council by Joint Special Envoy Kofi Annan.

The document outlines the efforts to implement a six-point plan that would impose a cease-fire and take measures to protect human rights, and admits that it has not worked.

In some places, the levels of violence are even higher today than they were before an initial cease-fire attempt, the report says.

The 300-strong U.N. team in Syria, whose mission is to observe and help implement the plan, has been unable to do its work as envisioned because of present conditions, the document states.

Last month, the United Nations announced that it was pulling back its unarmed monitors because of escalating violence. Opposition groups slammed the international body for the suspension of its work.

The U.N. mission’s role in Syria was based on the premise that there would be a cessation to the violence, and failing that, “a calibration of effort in response to the situation on the ground would be appropriate,” Ban writes.

Basically, the three options Ban puts on the table are: withdrawing the U.N. team, increasing its size or adding armed protection for them; or retooling the mission of the current team.

Ban elaborates the most on the idea to shift the strategy of the current U.N. team.

The team could retain its military observer capability and continue its fact-finding work, but with a limited scope in light of the violence in Syria, the report says.

In this scenario, the U.N. mission would move its personnel from the field back to Damascus, where it would focus on pushing forward the six-point plan to the Syrian government and the opposition.

“From a central hub in Damascus, the civilian component would continue liaison and dialogue with opposition and Government representatives in the provinces as security conditions allow,” Ban writes.

The other options — withdrawal or augmentation of the force — could have more negative consequences than good, the report concludes.

Withdrawing from Syria would ensure the safety of the team, but it could signal a loss of confidence in the hopes of a cease-fire and leave the U.N. without a way to monitor progress, the report says.

“(Withdrawing) would likely precipitate a further blow to efforts to stabilize the situation on the ground, and render the prospect of a negotiated Syrian-led transition, as laid out by the Action Group, more difficult,” Ban writes.

Expanding the size of the mission, with or without armed protection, poses an “unacceptably high” security risk, given that there are no signs of the violence receding immediately, the report says.

These options must be considered, Ban writes, because “in spite of the best efforts of (the mission) to support the parties in the effort to de-escalate the crisis, there is not a cessation of violence, and the basic human rights whose protection is at the core of the (six-point) plan continue to be violated,” the report says.

According to the opposition Local Coordination Committees in Syria, 71 people, including 10 defectors, were killed across the country.

In fighting in Aleppo Province since Friday, four Syrian troops and one opposition fighter were killed, another group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Heavy fighting was reported in Idlib, where the town of Al-Tamani’a was shelled by forces who tried to raid it, the group said.

Shelling was reported in several suburbs of Damascus.

The state-run SANA news agency reported at least four different incidents where “terrorist” attacks were foiled by security forces throughout the country. According to the agency, more than 11 fighters it identified as “terrorists” were killed by security forces, and at least 10 vehicles, some with weapons inside, were destroyed.

CNN cannot independently verify government and opposition claims of casualties because access to Syria by international journalists has been severely curtailed.

Russia on Monday rejected the deadline for Kofi

Annan’s six-point peace plan whilst Syrian

government forces continued their crackdown on

rebel bastions in the north, killing at least 18

people.

Syria has agreed to a deadline of 10 April to begin implementing a six-point peace plan, UN and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan has said.

The plan calls for a UN-supervised ceasefire by all parties, withdrawal of soldiers and heavy weapons from cities, and delivery of humanitarian aid.

Mr Annan has asked the UN Security Council to back the deadline.

Violence in Syria continued on Monday, with activists reporting fighting in Idlib and Homs.

Meanwhile, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Jakob Kellenberger, is on his way to Damascus for talks about expanding aid operations and gaining access to all detainees.

During his two-day visit, Mr Kellenberger plans to visit areas affected during the fighting, the ICRC said in a statement. He will also push the ICRC’s proposal for a daily two-hour ceasefire to allow aid to be delivered and the wounded to be evacuated.

Unfortunately, there are few “further steps” the United Nations Security Council can take at this point if it continues on a path of negotiating with a regime that, since the issuance of the Presidential Statement on March 21, has killed more than 300 people. Few have faith in Kofi Annan’s ability to bring an end to the atrocities. Only the credible threat of force or some other means of radically altering the balance of power in the country can affect the Assad regime’s calculus.

But Russia and China will not accede to a Security Council resolution that makes such a threat. They won’t even agree to explicitly support Bashar al-Assad’s ouster, which has been demanded by the United States, the European Union and the Arab League for months.

With diplomacy fast exhausting itself, the United States must now begin marshaling a coalition for regime change in Syria consisting of countries that have publicly indicated a willingness to participate. They include Britain, France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, whose prime minister last week indicated that it was time to assess options for imposing a safe zone in northern Syria (Turkey just closed its embassy in Damascus).

The mere planning for intervention would have two important strategic implications. First, it would send an unambiguous signal to Assad that his war against lightly armed militias and unarmed protestors is about to get a lot tougher, particularly because Russia has said that it will not continue arming him in the event of foreign intervention. Second, the imminent threat of force will surely increase the rate and scale of military and political defections.

Recent defectors have told of how Assad already treats the bulk of his military rank and file as revolutionaries-in-waiting. This is why he’s confined most army units to barracks, canceled or reduced their furloughs, force-fed them a steady diet of state propaganda, and surveilled their activities with embedded commissars. Instructing these men that they’re about to fight “terrorists” or “the Israeli enemy” is one thing; asking them to fight a multilateral coalition headed by the United States or a growing and well-armed rebellion by their own countrymen with significant outside materiel and political support is quite another.

(Reuters) - A monitoring mission to Syria that marks an unprecedented Arab intervention in a fellow Arab state may have just days to prove to skeptics it can be a credible witness to whether or not President Bashar al-Assad has halted a crackdown on protests.

The monitors, who began touring Syria on Tuesday, are the cornerstone of an Arab peace plan that Damascus must heed if it wants to avoid creating a new context for broader international involvement, Arab diplomats and regional analysts say.

States in the 22-member Arab League who backed action to try to end nine-months of bloodshed in Syria want to prevent the country sliding into a civil war, destabilizing a region convulsed by violence and unrest.

Arabs are also keen to avoid a rerun of Libya, where NATO air strikes helped oust long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi, and instead show they can put their own house in order without the assistance or interference of Western powers.

But a soaring death toll as Syria stalled over sending in monitors has encouraged skepticism about whether the League initiative can deliver an end to violence or will instead show the frailties of Arab diplomacy.

“The monitoring mission has a credibility issue now and whether they are able to access areas in the next two or three days will tell us whether they can be in any way effective,” said Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Doha Center.

“There is a healthy dose of skepticism here in terms of what they are going to be able to achieve,” he said.

Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby told Reuters last week that, once in place, monitors could determine in no more than a week whether Syria was adhering to a plan that calls for troops to be withdrawn from residential areas, freeing prisoners and the start of talks with the opposition.

But critics say the monitors may well be hoodwinked by their Syrian hosts, who could clear cities ahead of a their arrival before sending troops back in once monitors have gone.

MISSION LEADER

“I am afraid that the monitoring team might unintentionally turn into a false witness,” said Waheed Abdel Maguid, an expert at Cairo’s Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, adding he feared the team will blame “violence from both sides.”

Many were surprised by the mission leader, Sudanese General Mustafa al-Dabi. He has experience liaising between Khartoum and peacekeepers in Sudan, but critics question whether he can be a neutral witness given his military background in a country riven by rebellions and frequently accused of rights abuses.

Khartoum says its army has responded to armed rebellions and stuck to international rules of conduct, despite criticism from rights groups and the West over its handling of internal unrest.

“The Arab League doesn’t have anything more to offer. It is dragging its feet, not to defend the Syrian regime but to delay international interference. It is coming sometime,” said Al-Ahram’s Abdel Maguid.

Those inside Syria, who have watched the blood letting mount as the Arab diplomacy has lumbered on and seen the tanks open fire on residential areas, also doubt the monitoring mission will herald a change of tack by Assad’s government.

“We can’t rely on the Arab League. The only one we can turn to is God. We’ve been bearing this for 10 months and they keep giving the government extensions and now finally they brought monitors and then what? More extensions? Until we all die?” said Tamir, a Syrian construction worker, cowering in his basement.

Tamir, who only gave his first name to avoid reprisals, was speaking by telephone in the central Syrian city of Homs, the first stop for monitors that has been bombarded by the army.

The League said that, like any international peacekeeping or monitoring operation, it first needed Syria’s approval. Officials said the delay was not because it was negotiating terms but rather because it needed Damascus to accept without conditions.

“If it is a stalling tactic, we will all know for sure and certain in concrete terms in a week (from the start of monitoring),” Elaraby said in his Reuters interview last week, adding that reports from the mission would determine “the basis of which any future decision will be taken.”

SUSPENSION, SANCTIONS

Though critics may have wanted faster and more determined action to halt the violence, the League initiative is a first and dramatic shift in approach by Arab states that began with Libya and the changes sweeping the region in the “Arab Spring.”

The League has already suspended Syria and announced sweeping economic sanctions that Syria has acknowledged are impacting business and financial transactions. This is tougher action than the League has taken in the past.

For decades, the pan-Arab body founded in 1945 avoided taking any action against a fellow Arab state. Its founding principles did not give it the teeth that, for example, the United Nations and U.N. Security Council has.

Given this unprecedented step, some in Syria’s opposition are ready to give the League’s mission time to prove it can be a neutral witness, although they are clear that they expect the assessment to show the government crackdown has not abated.

“Let’s wait and see what (the mission) will do. I expect it will be able to write a report with many facts because the facts are so clear,” said Moulhem Droubi from the Muslim Brotherhood, part of a broader Syrian opposition grouping.

Based on reports from inside Syria, where foreign and independent media are broadly barred from operating, many analysts expect the monitoring mission to be a prelude to escalating the Syrian file beyond the League.

Qatar, which has led efforts to push Syria to agree to the Arab initiative, warned Damascus this month that the U.N. Security Council might be asked to adopt the Arab plan.

Elaraby said it was keeping the U.N. secretary-general regularly briefed about the plan.

At the Security Council, stern action against Syria may still face resistance from China and Russia, although Moscow pushed Damascus to let in monitors. The West has also shown limited appetite to be dragged into a new Middle East conflict.

But, if Syria fails to pull its troops back, pressure for international action could well mount.

“It is unprecedented for the Arab League to send Arab monitors to an Arab state,” an ambassador to the Cairo-based League told Reuters. “So we must help the monitors perform their work completely so we don’t give an opportunity for foreign (non-Arab) intervention.”

(Additional reporting by Tamim Elyan and Ayman Samir in Cairo and Mariam Karouny and Erika Solomon in Beirut)

Syria was accused of engaging in a time-buying ruse on Monday after it agreed to allow the Arab League to send observers into the country, temporarily averting a threat by regional powers to refer Damascus to the UN Security Council.