Arab world call for Eid ceasefire in war-torn Syria

Cairo/Beirut: The Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Thursday urged Syrian government forces and fighters battling President Bashar Al Assad to stage a ceasefire during the Islamic Eid Al Adha holiday, which falls next week.

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) issued a similar call, asking the Syrian regime to arrange a ceasefire out of respect for the sanctity of the Haj pilgrimage and to open border crossings to allow delivery of humanitarian aid and relief in all its forms for the millions of needy people trapped and displaced people both inside and outside of Syria.

Dr Abdullatif Bin Rashid Al Zayani, Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council appealed to all parties of the international community of states and organisations to intensify their humanitarian relief and assistance to Syrian people both inside and outside the country, especially as the bad conditions in which they suffer will worsen with expected weather changes in the coming winter.

Most of the Arab world will be on holiday next week when the Eid Al Adha holiday starts.

The Arab League and the OIC called on all warring factions to be “committed to a complete ceasefire and all acts of violence and killing of all kinds for the occasion of Eid Al Adha”, the secretary generals of both bodies said in a joint statement.

On the ground in Syria, international weapons inspectors announced that they have so far visited three sites across Syria, their spokesman said on Thursday, as they race to destroy its chemical arms stockpile and program amid a raging civil war.

The team is to visit more than 20 sites around the country in their disarmament mission. The three sites that it has visited in the past 10 days have all been in government-held areas, making it relatively easier for them to reach, said Michael Luhan, spokesman for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

Operating on rare consensus, the UN has tasked the OPCW to rid Syria of its stockpile by mid-2014 — the tightest deadline ever given to the OPCW. It’s also the first conducted amid a two-year conflict which pitting disorganised armed rebels against forces loyal to the regime of Bashar Al Assad.

While the first series of sites on in government-controlled regions, the 27-member team will have to cross rebel-held territory to reach some sites. The UN hopes to organize cease-fires between rebels and government forces to ensure safe passage.

Underscoring the complexity of their mission, in Syria, at least 18 people were killed, mostly men, after government forces bombed an area near the northern city of Safira in the Aleppo province and in the nearby city of Manbij, said the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which obtains its information through a network of activists on the ground. The official Syrian news agency SANA also reported another six people killed in the city of Aleppo in rebel fire.

Clashes also broke out between Al Qaida fighters of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and Kurdish rebels trying to push back their advance in the northern border province of Azaz, the Observatory reported.

In Beirut on Thursday, a lucky few Syrians flew to Germany, where they were accepted for temporary resettlement.

Men and women sobbed and hugged as relatives said goodbye to each other, helping them haul overstuffed suitcases onto a bus leading to the airport.

They were 106 of the 4,000 refugees that Germany has accepted to receive on two-year visas, said Roberta Russo of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

They remain a tiny minority of the 2 million Syrians now registered as refugees. Another 5 million Syrians are displaced within their own country because of the conflict. Another 100,000 people have been killed.

Russo called on donor countries to provide more aid to Syria’s neighbours, who are hosting over 97 per cent of refugees.