Nabil El-Arabi is again trying to get Damascus to embrace political compromise, Dina Ezzat reports The Arab League's secretary-general is applying maximum diplomatic pressure to get Damascus to agree to initiate a national dialogue with the opposition under the umbrella of the pan-Arab organisation. The League has been all but marginalised from attending to the major political crisis in Syria. El-Arabi has been in touch with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid El-Muallim to secure the agreement of Damascus to receive an Arab League delegation that should examine the chances of -- and hopefully set an agenda for -- the launch of a national dialogue. The Syrian foreign minister, according to an Arab League official, has not been very committed. "The Syrians are willing to receive a delegation from the Arab League within days, in principle, but we are not sure whether the delegation would be allowed to bring up matters related to the national dialogue that was recommended by the (recent Arab) foreign ministers meeting or not," said the official. An Arab foreign ministers meeting that convened Sunday in Cairo, at the headquarters of the pan-Arab organisation, called on the Syrian regime to agree to an Arab sponsored national dialogue in order to end the current political crisis in Syria and to prevent a further deterioration. "The situation in Syria is very disturbing... and the political solution there is still unforeseeable," said El-Arabi in a statement before the Arab League foreign ministers on Sunday. The statement of El-Arabi was supported by the statement of Hamed Ben Jassem, prime minister and foreign minister of Qatar, who is currently heading the Council of Arab Foreign Ministers. "We stand before a historic responsibility and we are trying to find an answer to the situation there... but it all depends on the cooperation of the Syrian authorities," the Qatari official said in a press conference following the meeting on Sunday. The meeting, which was preceded by a long round of consultations, refrained from adopting a firm position against the Syrian regime that has been coercing civil demonstrations calling for the end to the rule of Bashar Al-Assad. Momentum initiated by some Gulf Cooperation Council states, with the support of over 100 Arab and international non- governmental organisations, to get the Arab foreign ministers meeting to freeze the membership of Syria in the League failed. Last March, the Arab League froze the membership of Libya, in protest against the bloody crackdown of now toppled Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on an uprising against his rule. "The situation was different at the time, Gaddafi's coercion of the Libyan demonstrators was much more violent than what we are seeing in Syria," said an Arab diplomat. Moreover, he added, at the time the international community was willing to act to support the Libyan demonstrations, "but this is not the case with Syria; the international community has yet to find a replacement to the current Syrian regime." Finding a replacement to the regime of Al-Assad is something that is being discussed currently in world capitals, in close coordination with Israel. "Let us be realistic, Israel is really concerned about what could happen in Syria. I think we could all agree that it is not in the interest of the region to replace Bashar with some regime that might want to start wars," said a Cairo-based Western diplomat. Another Western diplomat said that "It is up to the Syrian people to find a replacement to their president and so far they have not done so." The National Transitional Council of Syria is failing to gain any credible recognition from the international community or from Arab countries. Arab countries perceive the council to be unrepresentative of the true Syrian opposition that is currently staging recurrent demonstrations against Al-Assad. Concerned Western capitals appear reticent to trust the council with the stability of Syria and the consequent stability of borders between Syria and Israel, not to mention the stability of Lebanon and Iraq. The Syrian regime seems aware that a replacement for it has not been found. A Syrian diplomat told Al-Ahram Weekly that despite some harsh statements that came out of Washington and Paris, the two crucial Western capitals on Syria, there are no clear indications that doors are closing on the Syrian regime. In his statement before the Foreign Ministers Council in Cairo on Sunday, Youssef Ahmed, the permanent representative of Syria, called on Arab countries to follow in the footsteps of Russia and China that recently vetoed a European resolution in the UN Security Council that aimed to toughen sanctions on Syria. Ahmed criticised the Arab countries in direct language for being "a cat's paw" of the US -- an allegation denied by Ben Jassem. Ahmed insisted that his country is "pursuing reforms" and that it would only agree to a national dialogue that takes place in Syria. This is not something that the Syria opposition would agree to, however, according to statements made by its representatives. The leaders of the Syrian demonstrators have also made statements shrugging off the new Arab League initiative. Meanwhile, the Syrian regime has intensified its attacks on demonstrators, targeting clinics and hospitals offering medical care to victims of its crackdown, according to concerned rights organisations.
