Monitor freeze
January 28, 2012
The Arab League announced on Saturday that it would temporarily halt its monitoring mission in Syria due to the recent increase in violence there.
"The decision to suspend the Arab League mission in Syria has been taken because of the upsurge in violence, and an official announcement will be made later," an Arab League official told Agence France Press on condition of anonymity.
The United Nations Security Council had met on Friday to discuss a draft resolution aimed at putting an end to the violence between rebels and government troops in Syria.
The latest proposal from the Security Council was drafted by European and Arab nations, including Britain, France, and Germany.
Although the resolution is not set to go to a vote until next week, Russia has already voiced its opposition to it. Vitaly Churkin, the Russian ambassador to the UN, said the draft resolution crossed Russia's "red lines."
Russia is one of the nations with veto power on the Security Council. It rejected a previous European resolution in October, along with China.
The current draft resolution would lend UN support to the Arab League's plan to call on Syrian President Bashar Assad to hand over control to a deputy and enable the creation of a national unity government that would set up new elections.
Arab League representatives are to meet with the Security Council on Monday or Tuesday to put more pressure on Russia and China to go along with the plan.
"The situation in Syria is horrible, and every day gets worse," said Peter Wittig, Germany's UN ambassador. He said there is a chance that disagreement on the Security Council could be resolved with support from the Arab League, and that the meeting was "the chance for a turning point."
Wittig's French counterpart, Gerard Araud, said the Arab League plan was "the only way to avoid the worst outcome."
'Significant' escalation in violence
Meanwhile, the death toll in Syria mounted on Friday amid an escalation in violence described as "significant" by Arab League observers.
Figures compiled by the news agency DPA put the number of fatalities at more than 100 over the last few days. It documented activists' reports of civilian deaths in cities including Hama and Homs, as well as the country's second largest city, Aleppo.
Some news agencies, however, are reporting death figures as low as 40. With foreign journalists mostly banned from entering Syria, the figures are difficult to verify.
Fighting has also been reported in and around the capital, Damascus. The observer mission sent to Syria by the Arab League said violence had noticeably increased in recent days.
"The violence in Syria increased in a significant way between January 24 and 27, especially in Homs, Hama and Idlib," General Mohammed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi, who heads the observer team, said in a statement on Friday.
Dozens of Syrians stormed the Syrian embassy in Cairo on Friday to protest against violence carried out by the Assad regime, Egyptian security sources said.
The UN says more than 5,400 people have been killed since the uprising began last March. Among them were at least 384 children, according to a United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) report published Friday.
Author: Richard Connor, Matt Zuvela, Andrew Bowen (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)
Editor: Martin Kuebler