Just one day before it was to start, Arab League chief Nabil El-Arabi has delayed his planned visit to Syria.
“The visit has been postponed, not cancelled,” an Arab diplomat, who asked not to be identified, told the Reuters news agency, adding the visit will take place “when conditions permit.”
El-Araby was planning to travel to Damascus on Wednesday, where he was to convey Arab concerns over the Syrian government’s continued violent crackdown on protests against President Bashar Assad.
Egypt’s state news agency, MENA, said that the delay in El-Araby’s visit followed a request from Syria. MENA said Syria gave no explanation for the delay and did not fix a new date for the trip.
Last week, Arab foreign ministers broke months of silence on the Syrian issue after a special meeting. They issued a statement urging an “end to the spilling of blood and (for Syria) to follow the way of reason before it is too late.”
During his visit, El-Arabi would have presented Assad with a 13-point document outlining proposals to end the bloodshed and push Syria to launch reforms.
The document, AFP reported Tuesday, would propose that Assad hold elections in three years, move towards a pluralistic government and halt immediately the crackdown on anti-regime protesters.
The initiative calls for a “clear declaration of principles by President Bashar al-Assad specifying commitment to reforms he made in past speeches.”
It says Assad should declare his “commitment to making the transition towards a pluralistic government and use his powers to speed up reforms and announce multi-candidate elections... for 2014, when his current mandate ends.”
The proposal also calls on the Syrian government “to immediately end” the crackdown on protesters in order “to spare Syria from sliding into sectarian strife or providing justification for foreign intervention.”