CAIRO — Syria accepted an Arab League plan meant to halt violence and lead to dialogue with the opposition within two weeks, league officials announced Wednesday, but government opponents and others voiced doubt that Damascus could or would change tactics so abruptly.
The plan calls for the government of President Bashar al-Assad to remove all tanks and armored vehicles from the streets, to halt violence aimed at protesters and to release political prisoners, estimated at about 70,000 by the Arab League. The league would then initiate dialogue with the opposition at its headquarters in Cairo.
The immediate reaction came from antigovernment protesters gathered outside the Arab League headquarters near Tahrir Square, who chanted: “No dialogue! Leave, Bashar!”
As the league’s foreign ministers met in Cairo, violence continued apace in Syria itself, with two cases of what appeared to be mass sectarian killings that left 20 dead. If confirmed, the episodes could be the most serious sectarian bloodshed since demonstrations broke out in March, suggesting that simmering tensions within country’s long brutalized population might be beginning to boil over.
The Arab League effort on Syria was evidently an attempt to avoid repeating the pattern set by Libya. The league expelled the Libyans and called for international action, after which the United Nations Security Council issued a resolution that led to NATO’s bombing campaign.
“We are happy to have reached this agreement, and we will be even happier once it is implemented,” said Sheik Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, the Qatari foreign minister, who announced the agreement at a news conference here. Foreign ministers had met for two hours to hear the Syrian response to the league proposal. Syria was represented not by its foreign minister but by its ambassador to the league, Youssef Ahmed.
Syria had been seeking to hold the dialogue with the opposition in Damascus, where it could choose who attends. But even if the immediate violence is halted, it was unclear whether the Syrian opposition would unite behind the talks.
Adib Shishakli, an opposition figure based in Saudi Arabia, said that the Syrian government had lost all credibility and that even if the Syrian National Council accepted the Arab League proposal, protesters and activists would reject it. Mr. Shishakli also said that the council had not received the proposal yet.
“We have reached the point of no return,” Mr. Shishakli said by phone. “This regime keeps promising but on the other side suppression and violence increase.”
The opposition in exile, which has been trying to maintain the united front it formed recently in Turkey, consists of different religious and political factions that, while disagreeing on many issues, have generally been opposed to negotiating with the government, as have some activists inside Syria. In contrast, the Damascus-based opposition generally accepts the idea.
The Assad government has maintained that it faces an internal armed insurrection that must be put down with force. Sheik Hamad said that if the plan was not implemented, the Arab foreign ministers would reconvene to consider other steps, but he said he would not want to issue any threats at this point.
The United Nations estimates that some 3,000 people have died in the uprising. The Syrian government disputes this figure and maintains that “armed gangs” have killed more than 1,100 police and soldiers.
With most outside journalists barred, Syrian rights activists have been the source of most reports of government abuses. On Wednesday, they reported the sectarian killings.
In central Syria, they said, the bodies of 11 civilians, bound and gagged, were discovered in a village northwest of the restive city of Homs, near the Lebanese border. They said that the victims, whose bodies bore signs of torture, were killed when attackers struck their small factory and shot everyone inside in the head. Some said the factory manufactured bricks, others said tissues.
The motive for the killings remained unclear, but it followed news of the deaths of nine men, who were dragged from a bus near Homs and killed on Tuesday. There were reports that those killed belonged to the minority Alawite sect, and the killing of the factory workers was to avenge their deaths.
But antigovernment activists said that among those dragged from the bus and killed were at least one Sunni Muslim and two Christians, in addition to Alawites. Mr. Assad belongs to the Alawite sect, whose members dominate the security services, the main source of the government’s grip on power.
“I saw the ambulance taking their bodies to the national hospital in Homs,” said Salim, an activist reached by phone from Homs. “I have a list of their names and they are from different sects. The regime is trying to portray this as a sectarian crime, but it is not.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Syrian group operating in exile, also said on Wednesday that army deserters attacked an army bus near the city of Hama and that at least 15 soldiers were killed.
Some deserters have formed into militias to attack government forces.
The Local Coordination Committees also said that five people were killed in Homs on Wednesday when tanks assaulted several neighborhoods. “We haven’t witnessed violence like today in Homs,” said an activist who gave his name as Mohamad Saleh. “It is escalation all around the city.”
If the Syrian government abides by the Arab League pact, it will basically cease firing on demonstrators. The Arab League plan also calls for Syrian and international news media to have full access to the country.
In Washington, the Obama administration, while welcoming the accord, said it should be judged by the results on the ground and repeated its policy that Mr. Assad should go.
The general sense among opposition figures, Arab diplomats and analysts is that the Syrian government, facing intense regional and international pressure, feels that it is gaining the upper hand and wants to find ways to stall for time.
“This regime knows very well that if the army was pulled out, millions will go back to the streets and the regime will fall soon,” said Mr. Shishakli.
In January, major street demonstrations forced out the Tunisian president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. The next month, mass protests that rocked Cairo’s Tahrir Square brought down Egypt’s, Hosni Mubarak.
Thus far, the size of Syrian demonstrations has been contained by the harsh crackdown, particularly in Damascus.
That is one of the reasons that the Syrian government had said it would only release the political prisoners in stages, although the exact time table remains unclear.
“We are not happy with the decision because it is all talk,” said Adeeb Mohamed, 22, a Syrian student protesting outside the Arab League. “The regime will never implement it because as soon as they withdraw the tanks, the regime will fall.”
Source: nytimes.com