Beirut (dpa) – Syria's foreign minister said that his country will continue to take any step to defend itself against “chaos”, as Gulf states withdrew observers from the Arab League mission in Syria, where 24 people were killed on Tuesday. “It is the duty of the Syrian government to take what it sees as necessary measures to deal with those armed groups that spread chaos,” Walid al-Moallem told a press conference, signaling that Damascus will continue its crackdown on dissidents despite mounting pressure from Arab countries. Al-Moallem's remarks came as members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) said they were pulling their monitors from the observing mission in Syria. “The decision was made after careful and thorough monitoring of events in Syria and the conviction by the GCC that the bloodshed and the killing of innocent people there is continuing,” the statement by the six-nation GCC said. The GCC, which comprises Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, has long backed referring the Syrian crisis to the Security Council. “This is their business,” al-Moallem said. “Maybe the Saudi brothers in the mission do not want to see the realities on the ground, which don't satisfy their plots.” The Gulf Cooperation Council also called on the UN Security Council to take all “necessary measures” to force Syria to implement the league's peace plan, which called on President Bashar al-Assad to step down and hand over power to his vice president. Al-Moallem described the Arab League proposal as a violation of national sovereignty. He also brushed off the threat of the Security Council and said that even if Arab foreign ministers referred the Syrian crisis to the UN nothing will change on the ground. “Some Arab countries killed the Arab League's role and headed to the United Nations … to internationalize the Syrian crisis,” al-Moallem said. Al-Moallem said Syria “is a mountain, … unshaken by wind” and said he expected Arab ministers to be ashamed for not dealing with the observers' report objectively. He added that Syria is still considering if it will accept the extension of the Arab League observers missions to the country. “This issue is still under study and we will inform the Arab League what we decide,” he told reporters. The head of the observers mission, Sudanese General Mohamed al-Dabi, left Cairo Tuesday to Damascus after he presenting his report to the Arab League, officials at Cairo Airport said. Representatives at the Arab League are to meet later Tuesday to discuss the monitoring mission after the Gulf countries decided to withdraw their observers. Amnesty International called Tuesday for the involvement of the United Nations (UN) and the International Criminal Court in efforts to address the human rights concerns raised by the Arab League. “The true measure of the observer mission's success will be whether its findings can successfully spur the international community to address the serious ongoing human rights concerns in Syria,” said Ann Harrison, Amnesty's deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa. The arguments of countries that have blocked action on Syria at the UN Security Council sounded increasingly hollow, she said, urging the Security Council to respond effectively by referring the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court. Since the uprising started in mid-March against al-Assad, the Syrian regime have accused some Arab and foreign countries of conspiring against it. Meanwhile, activists based in Syria told dpa that Tuesday's death toll reached 24, most of whom were from the central province of Hama. “The Syrian army is still surrounding the province of Hama with Tanks and the shelling on the city has killed 21 people,” said Abu Abdullah, a member of the Local Coordination Committees (LCC), which organizes protests on the ground. According to United Nations estimates, more than 5,400 people have been killed since the uprising started against al-Assad. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/eNMvv Tags: Assad, Crackdown, GCC, Violence Section: Latest News, Syria
