Damascus: Syria's foreign minister accused Arab states yesterday of conspiring against Damascus after the Arab League voted to suspend Syria's membership over the government's deadly crackdown on an eight-month-old uprising.
Waleed Al Mua'alem said Saturday's near-unanimous vote at the Arab League's headquarters in Cairo was an illegitimate decision prompted by American incitement.
The vote was a stinging rebuke to a regime that prides itself as a bastion of Arab nationalism and left Syria increasingly isolated over a crackdown that the UN estimates has killed more than 3,500 people since mid-March.
"We wanted the role of the Arab League to be a supporting role but if the Arabs wanted to be conspirators, this is their business," Al Mua'alem told a press conference in Damascus that betrayed his country's deep alarm over the decision.
The vote to suspend Syria put Damascus in direct confrontation with other Arab powers, including Qatar and Saudi Arabia, who were pushing for the suspension. The vote constituted a major boost for the Syrian opposition.
Al Assad's counter
Syrian President Bashar Al Assad asserts that extremists pushing a foreign agenda to destabilise Syria are behind the country's unrest, rather than true reform-seekers aiming to open the country's autocratic political system.
"Syria is not Libya. The Libyan scenario will not be repeated; what is happening in Syria is different from what happened in Libya and the Syrian people should not worry," Al Mua'alem said.
"I think that the position of Russia and China, which we thank them for, will not change," he said, also thanking India, South Africa Brazil and Lebanon for their positions in the Security Council.
His remarks came as the Arab League called a new meeting on Syria tomorrow after voting to suspend the country's membership, drawing global praise but triggering mob attacks on foreign embassies in Damascus.
Saturday's vote to suspend Syria from the Arab League, by 18 of the bloc's 22 members, triggered attacks by angry pro-regime mobs on the Damascus embassies of France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Al Mua'alem apologised for the violence.
