CAIRO – The Arab League gave Syria one day to sign a protocol allowing monitors into the country or face sanctions over its crackdown on protests, including the halting of flights and suspension of transactions with the central bank.
Arab foreign ministers who met in Cairo yesterday said unless Syria agreed to let the monitors in to assess progress of an Arab League plan to end eight months of bloodshed, officials would consider imposing sanctions tomorrow.
Under a November 2nd Arab League initiative, Syria agreed to withdraw troops from urban centres, release political prisoners, start a dialogue with the opposition and allow monitors and international media into the country.
Since then, hundreds of people, civilians, security forces and army deserters, have been killed as the unrest, which the United Nations says has killed 3,500 people since March, continues unabated.
The violence prompted former ally Turkey to bluntly tell President Bashar al-Assad to step down and led France to propose “humanitarian corridors” in Syria to help transport medicines or other supplies to civilians in need.
French foreign minister Alain Juppé said he would discuss the idea with the Arab League, but a source at the 22-member body said the proposal was not brought up at the Cairo meeting.
“In the case that Syria does not sign the protocol . . . or that it later violates the commitments that it entails, and does not stop the killing or does not release the detainees . . . will meet on Saturday to consider sanctions on Syria,” the Arab ministers said in a statement.
They said possible sanctions, which were not intended to affect ordinary Syrians, included suspending flights to Syria, stopping dealings with the Syrian central bank, freezing Syrian government bank accounts and halting financial dealings with Syria.
They could also decide to stop commercial trade with the Syrian government “with the exception of strategic commodities so as not to impact the Syrian people”, the statement said.
Syria’s economy is already reeling from the eight months of unrest, aggravated by US and European sanctions on oil exports and several state businesses.
After months in which the international community has seemed determined to avoid direct entanglement in a core Middle East country, the diplomatic consensus seems to be changing.
The Arab League suspended Syria’s membership two weeks ago, while this week the prime minister of regional heavyweight Turkey – a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member with the military wherewithal to mount a cross-border operation – told Dr Assad to quit and said he should look at what happened to fallen dictators such as Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Libya’s deposed leader Muammar Gadafy.
France became the first major power to seek international intervention in Syria when it called for “humanitarian corridors” in Syria to alleviate civilian suffering.
A western diplomatic source said the French plan, with or without approval from Damascus, could link Syrian civilian centres to frontiers in countries such as Turkey and Lebanon, to the Mediterranean coast or to an airport.
Its aim would enable the transport of humanitarian supplies or medicines to a suffering population, the source said.
Mr Juppé insisted the plan fell short of a military intervention, but acknowledged humanitarian convoys would need armed protection. “There are two possible ways: that the international community, Arab League and the United Nations can get the regime to allow these humanitarian corridors,” he told French radio yesterday. “But if that isn’t the case we’d have to look at other solutions . . . with international observers.” – (Reuters)