Arab parliament head calls on Arabs to cut Syria ties

Sun Feb 05, 2012 4:08 am » by **Malogg**

Residents attend a burial ceremony for what activists say are victims of shelling by the Syrian army in the Khalidiya neighborhood in Homs on Saturday. (Reuters)

CAIRO: The head of the Arab Parliament, a committee of parliamentarians from Arab League states, called on Saturday for Arab countries to expel Syria’s ambassadors and sever diplomatic relations over President Bashar Assad’s crackdown on protests.

“(Arab states) should expel Syrian ambassadors and sever diplomatic relations and economic dealings (with Syria) until the regime complies with the demands of the Syrian people,” Ali Al-Salem Al-Dekbas, head of the 88-member committee, said in a statement.

Arab states have turned decisively against Assad in recent months over a crackdown on opponents of Assad that the United Nations says has killed at least 5,000 people in 11 months. Assad’s government says it is fighting foreign-backed insurgents, and most deaths have been among its troops.

Western and Arab nations are trying to overcome Russian resistance to a UN Security Council resolution backing an Arab League call for Assad to give up power. The diplomacy has taken on new urgency since activists said overnight that Assad’s forces had killed more than 200 people in the city of Homs.

Tunisia started a procedure on Saturday for withdrawing its recognition of Assad’s government. Tunisia's president said his government no longer recognizes the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Later in the day, staff at the Syrian embassy in Tunis, the capital, lowered the national flag over the building.

A Reuters reporter outside the Syrian embassy said that when the flag was lowered, a crowd of nearly 200 people, who were protesting nearby against the Syrian government’s crackdown on its opponents, cheered and shouted: “The people want liberty for Syria!”

Dekbas said Arab states should confront the Russian delegate to the United Nations, whose delay in taking action “allows for a continuation of....killing of the Syrian people.”

He condemned what he said was “the international community standing and watching” violence in Syria, which he described as “crimes against humanity.”

http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article571145.ece