‘No plan to send Arab troops to Syria’

CAIRO — The Arab League has not received any official request or suggestion that it send Arab troops to Syria, an Arab representative to the Cairo-based League said yesterday.

Qatar’s Emir, Shaikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani, said on Saturday that Arab troops may have to step in to halt the bloodshed in Syria.

“There is no official suggestion to send Arab troops to Syria at the current time ... There has been no Arab or a non-arab agreement on a military intervention in Syria for the time being,” the representative to the League said.

There is little appetite in the West for any Libya-style intervention in Syria, although France has talked of a need to set up zones to protect civilians there.

The Arab League has sug- gested a peace plan that requires an immediate halt of violence and withdrawal of military forces from cities and has been sending monitors from different Arab states to check if Assad’s government is committed to the Arab plan.

But both Arab monitors who have travelled to Syria and sources in the Arab League say violence has continued unabated and have voiced concerns about the efficacy of the mission in its current form.

Arab League foreign ministers will meet on January 22 to discuss the findings of monitors sent to Syria to observe whether President Bashar al Assad has implemented a plan to end 10 months of bloodshed, Egypt’s Middle East News Agency said.

The Arab League monitors are due to complete on January 19 a report on the situation in Syria. An Arab League committee on Syria will discuss the report on January 21 but only a full meeting of the 22-member body’s foreign ministers can decide whether to end, extend or beef up the mission.

Meanwhile, the UN chief told Bashar al Assad yesterday to “stop killing your people” and the Syrian leader offered an amnesty for “crimes” committed during a 10-month-old revolt against him.

“Today, I say again to President Assad of Syria: stop the violence, stop killing your people. The path of repression is a dead end,” UN SecretaryGeneral Ban Ki-moon told a conference in Lebanon on democratic transitions in the Arab world.

“From the very beginning of the ... revolutions, from Tunisia through Egypt and beyond, I called on leaders to lis- ten to their people,” Ban said. “Some did, and benefited. Others did not, and today they are reaping the whirlwind.”

Syria’s state news agency said Assad had granted an amnesty for “crimes committed in the context of the events since March 15, 2011, until January 15, 2012”.

The amnesty would run to the end of the month, covering army deserters and people held for having unauthorised arms or violating laws on peaceful protest.

Addounia television said Arab League monitors discussed implementing the amnesty with Damascus police yesterday. They also visited a hospital in the coastal city of Banias.

Assad has issued several amnesties since the start of protests, but opposition groups say thousands of people re- main behind bars and that many have been tortured or abused.

The Avaaz campaign group said on December 22 that at least 69,000 people had been detained since the start of the uprising, of whom 32,000 had been released.

Freeing detainees was one of the terms of an Arab peace plan, which also called for an end to bloodshed, the withdrawal troops and tanks from the streets and a political dialogue.

State media and an opposition group said at least five textile workers were killed when bomb hit them in the northern province of Idlib yesterday. Sana news agency blamed an “armed terrorist group” for carrying out the attack.

There is little appetite in the West for any Libya-style intervention in Syria, although France has talked of a need to set up zones to protect civilians there.

China and Russia have blocked any action against Syria by the UN Security Council. The United States, the European Union and the Arab League have announced economic sanctions, although it is not clear if the Arab measures have been implemented.

Turkey, whose foreign minister was also attending the conference where Ban spoke in Beirut, has also slapped sanctions on Syria after the violence prompted it to turn against a neighbour it had once courted assiduously.

In the latest violence, residents said security forces shot dead a 17-year-old protester in the Damascus neighbourhood of Qaboun overnight. “He was hit in the chest,” one resident said. — Reuters/afp