Arabs give Syria one day to agree monitors | Stuff.co.nz

Arabs give Syria one day to agree monitors | Stuff.co.nz

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'HUMANITARIAN CORRIDORS'

After months in which the international community has seemed determined to avoid direct entanglement in a core Middle East country, the diplomatic consensus seems to be changing.

The Arab League suspended Syria's membership two weeks ago, while this week the prime minister of regional heavyweight Turkey - a NATO member with the military wherewithal to mount a cross-border operation - told Assad to quit and said he should look at what happened to fallen dictators such as Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Libya's deposed leader Muammar Gaddafi.

France became the first major power to seek international intervention in Syria when it called for "humanitarian corridors" in Syria to alleviate civilian suffering.

A Western diplomatic source said the French plan, with or without approval from Damascus, could link Syrian civilian centres to frontiers such as Turkey and Lebanon, to the Mediterranean coast or to an airport.
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Its aim would enable the transport of humanitarian supplies or medicines to a population that is suffering, the source said.

Juppe insisted the plan fell short of a military intervention, but acknowledged that humanitarian convoys would need armed protection.

"There are two possible ways: That the international community, Arab League and the United Nations can get the regime to allow these humanitarian corridors," he told French radio on Thursday. "But if that isn't the case we'd have to look at other solutions ... with international observers."

Asked if humanitarian convoys would need military protection, he said: "Of course... by international observers, but there is no question of military intervention in Syria." [ read more at link ]