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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Arab Summit Won't Urge Assad to Quit
2012-03-26
The Arab League
...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
, which is holding its annual summit in Iraq this week, will not call for Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor...
to resign, the group's secretary general said in comments published on Sunday.

Nabil al-Arabi told pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat Assad's response to proposals by international envoy Kofi Annan
...Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh and so far the worst Secretary-General of the UN. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for something or other that probably sounded good at the time. In December 2004, reports surfaced that Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna, which had won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil-for-Food Program. Kofi Annan called for an investigation to look into the allegations, which stirred up the expected cesspool but couldn't seem to come up with enough evidence to indict Kofi himself, or even Kojo...
to end the bloodshed in Syria was "insufficient," and said he planned to submit a report on the crisis to summit leaders.

Asked in an interview if it was unlikely that the vaporous Arab League would call for Assad's resignation during the meeting, Arabi replied: "That is correct."

Annan was in Moscow on Sunday to shore up vital backing from Russia which, along with China, has already blocked two U.N. Security Council resolutions condemning the Syrian regime's brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters that the opposition says has killed at least 9,100 people since March last year.

International and regional efforts to end the violence in Syria hinge on sustained pressure by both China and Russia on their Arab ally.

Annan's meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev comes just days after Russia finally backed a Security Council statement calling on Assad's forces to pull out of protest cities.

Annan will also travel to Beijing on Tuesday and Wednesday.

His peace plan calls for a U.N.-supervised halt to fighting, with the government pulling troops and heavy weapons out of protest cities, a daily two-hour humanitarian pause to hostilities and access to all areas affected by the fighting.
Posted by:Fred

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