Lebanon Votes against Arab League Decision on Syria, Mansour Says it Will Lead to a Crisis
Lebanon voted on Saturday against a decision taken by the Arab foreign ministers to suspend Syria’s membership in the Arab League.
18 countries agreed to the decision, while Lebanon, Yemen and Syria voted against it and Iraq abstained.
Lebanese Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour told al-Manar television, hours after the decision was announced, that the “the resolution taken by the Arab League is dangerous, because it was taken against a member state.”
“These decisions will not help solve the crisis in Syria but will push it towards a very critical stage,” he stressed.
The foreign minister added that “security in Syria preserves the security of the region.”
On October, Russia and China on a European-backed draft resolution that would have threatened possible action against President Bashar Assad. However, non-permanent members Lebanon, South Africa, Brazil, and India abstained.
Arab League foreign ministers convened on Saturday for an emergency session to discuss Syria's failure to end a deadly crackdown on civilian protests.
Ministers made their way into the 22-member body's headquarters in Cairo to debate their response to Syria's defiance of an earlier League initiative calling for a cease-fire.
They walked past about 100 demonstrators, who echoed calls by Syria's opposition to suspend the country's membership in the 22-nation body -- a powerful symbolic blow to a nation that prides itself on being a powerhouse of Arab nationalism.
Protesters carried placards reading "Freedom for the Syrian people" and "Arab leaders are garbage" as they chanted for the removal of Syrian President Bashar Assad. They were joined by demonstrators from Yemen, protesting violent government crackdowns in their country.
Mansour told MTV station on Friday that “Syria’s major role in the Arab world, (political) positions and policies force us to disagree on suspending its membership.”
He wondered how Lebanon would want “to stand against a country that it has a security treaty with?”
Syria agreed to a peace plan last week brokered by the Arab League, but the violence has continued unabated, with November shaping up to be the bloodiest month yet in Syria's 8-month-old uprising. More than 250 Syrian civilians have been killed in the past 11 days as the regime besieges the rebellious city of Homs.
The U.N. estimates some 3,500 people have been killed in the Syrian crackdown since the uprising began eight months ago, inspired by the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia.
Source: Naharnet
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