Syria postpones Arab League chief’s visit amid violent crackdown

Syrian forces killed two people as they pressed their crackdown on dissent Tuesday, as a planned visit to Damascus by the head of the Arab League chief in which he had been due to press the bloc’s calls for reform was postponed.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a 15-year-old boy and another civilian were killed by gunfire in the flashpoint central province of Homs, where another five bodies were found on Tuesday.

The latest bloodshed came as the embattled regime of President Bashar al-Assad “put off to an undetermined date” a visit by Arab League secretary general Nabil al-Arabi who was going to carry with him a 13-point initiative to help end the crisis, according to a diplomatic source

It also comes a day after the International Committee of the Red Cross said Syria had agreed, for the first time since anti-regime protests erupted more than five months ago, to allow its delegates to visit a detention centre.

Meanwhile Norway, which is not a member of the European Union, said on Tuesday it would adopt the bloc’s sanctions imposed on Syria to protest against Damascus’s violent repression of demonstrators.

More than 2,200 people have been killed in Syria since the almost daily mass protests began, according to UN figures. Human rights groups say that more than 10,000 are behind bars.

Assad’s regime says it is fighting foreign-backed “armed terrorist gangs.”

The Arab League chief has been commissioned by the 22-member bloc to travel to Damascus with a 13-point document outlining proposals to end the bloodshed and push Syria to launch reforms.

According to a copy of the document seen by AFP, Arabi is to propose that Assad hold elections in three years, move towards a pluralistic government and halt immediately the crackdown on anti-regime protesters.

The initiative, agreed at an Arab foreign ministers’ meeting in Cairo last month, calls for a “clear declaration of principles by President Bashar al-Assad specifying commitment to reforms he made in past speeches.”

It says Assad should declare his “commitment to making the transition towards a pluralistic government and use his powers to speed up reforms and announce multi-candidate elections... for 2014, when his current mandate ends.”

Assad has pledged reforms and in August issued a decree allowing opposition political parties alongside the ruling Baath party in power since 1963 with the constitutional status of “the leader of state and society.”

But his regime insists its policies will not be dictated from abroad.

The proposal also calls on Syria “to immediately end” the crackdown, launch “serious political contacts” with members of the opposition and to “separate the military from political and civil life.”

Arab foreign ministers held a special meeting on Syria on August 27 and called on Damascus “to follow the way of reason before it is too late” and to respect “the right of the Syrian people to live in security.”

The statement angered Syria which said it contained “unacceptable and biased language.”

Arabi said Tuesday that he had been instructed by the Arab League “to carry a clear message to the Syrian authorities about the situation in Syria and the need to stop the violence and launch immediate reforms.”

Syrian official newspapers Tuesday downplayed the importance of the visit, with the ruling party’s mouthpiece, Al-Baath, criticizing what is said was “the media buzz” that preceded the visit.

It said the media attention was “artificial” and aimed at pushing the Arab League into political maneuvering turning the pan-Arab organization into “the political arm of NATO military adventures instead of being the home of Arabs.”

Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said on Tuesday that Oslo would match the sanctions adopted by the European Union against Damascus over its failure to halt the repression.

The EU on Friday adopted a ban on oil imports from Syria, which is expected to hit the government hard as the EU buys 95 percent of Syria’s crude exports, providing a third of its hard currency earnings. The bloc has not excluded further sanctions.