Iraqi delegation arrives in Syria for talks; Arab League sees ‘positive signs’

Iraqi National Security Adviser Falah al-Fayadh arrived in Damascus on Saturday for talks with Syrian officials on an Iraqi proposal to end months of unrest, an aide to Iraq’s premier said.

“He is there to meet with the Syrian authorities to discuss the Iraqi peace initiative,” Ali Mussawi, media advisor to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, told AFP.

The initiative is aimed at opening a dialogue between the opposition and the Syrian government to reach a result that satisfies both sides, Maliki said in an interview with AFP on Thursday.

“America and Europe are afraid of the phase after (Syrian President) Bashar al-Assad. That is why they understand the initiative” from Iraq, Maliki said.

The United Nations this week estimated that more than 5,000 people have been killed in the Syrian government’s crackdown on dissent, now in its 10th month.

Shiite-led Iraq has so far shied away from punitive measures against Assad’s Alawite Shiite regime, abstaining from both a vote to suspend Syria from the Arab League, and another to impose sanctions on Damascus.

There are fears among officials in Iraq, which has a substantial Sunni minority, that instability in neighboring Sunni-majority Syria could spill over the border.

‘Positive signs’

Meanwhile, the Arab League expects the Damascus regime to sign up “soon” to an observer mission intended to monitor the protection of civilians, the bloc’s number two Ahmed Ben Helli said on Saturday.

“There are positive signs... I expect the signing will happen soon,” Ahmed Ben Helli told AFP ahead of a meeting of an Arab League ministerial commission in Qatar.

“It will not be today,” he said, before the meeting, which had originally been scheduled to take place in Cairo alongside a now indefinitely postponed emergency foreign ministers’ meeting.

Announcing the postponement late on Thursday, Ben Helli said negotiations would continue with the Syrian government to try to convince it to implement an Arab plan to end bloodshed.

The Arab League approved a raft of sanctions against the Damascus authorities on November 27 to punish their failure to heed an ultimatum to admit the observers but Syria said on Sunday that it would allow the mission in on certain conditions.

In a letter to the bloc’s secretary general, Nabil al-Arabi, Foreign Minister Walid Muallem set a number of terms, notably the withdrawal of the sanctions package.

Ben Helli said on Thursday that the League was still holding talks with Syria on its offer.

On Friday, hundreds of thousands turned out across Syria for rallies called under the slogan: “The Arab League is killing us – enough deadlines,” in protest at the bloc’s failure to take a tougher stance.