Arab League indefinitely postpone meeting on Syria

The Arab League did not reveal details of the postponement Nearly a 100 Syrian soldiers announced on Thursday that they were defecting to the Syrian opposition by posting a video online. The group, from the north west province of Idlib, described themselves as the Martyrs of the Jabal Al-Zawiyah brigade, according to dissident Ammar Abdulhamid.
The video was put up on the Free Syrian Army's (FSA) Facebook page.
The Arab League foreign ministers' meeting on Syria scheduled for Saturday was postponed indefinitely, said the League's Deputy Secretary General Ahmed Ben Helli late Thursday.
But the Arab ministerial committee, which is in charge of following and handling the Syrian crisis, will convene on Saturday in the Qatari capital of Doha, Egypt's official MENA news agency reported, quoting the official.
The League had previously planned to hold both the meetings of the ministerial committee and foreign ministers in Cairo on Saturday.
Ben Helli did not reveal any more details about the Arab foreign minsters' meeting.
The decisions were made after consultations between the Arab League Secretary General Nabil Al-Arabi and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim Al-Thani, who chairs the ministerial committee, as well as several Arab ministers, including Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Moallem, MENA reported.
Meanwhile, in a surprising move, Russia introduced a draft resolution on Syria to the UN Security Council.
The draft holds Damascus responsible for "disproportionate use of force" and represents a shift from Moscow's position so far, as the Kremlin has steadfastly blocked the Security Council's attempts to censure Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad for his brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.
Russia’s draft, while strongly condemning the violence, was deemed "too soft," and was rejected; but Western envoys said the while the Russian text was too weak, they were willing to negotiate over it, offering the council a chance to overcome its deadlock and issue its first resolution on Syria's nine-month-old crackdown on protesters.
Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said Moscow believed piling up pressure and sanctions on Iran was not the right solution to settle the country’s nuclear case, leading any possibility for talks on the issue to a standstill.
Lukashevich told Iranian state news agency IRNA that categorically, Iran’s nuclear programme was discussed in the Russia-EU summit in Brussels as a regional issue.
He said the Iran issue would be discussed in the G5+1 meeting, chaired by Baroness Catherine Ashton, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
The US welcomed Moscow’s new position: “Hopefully we can work with the Russians, who for the first time at least, have recognized that this is a matter that needs to go to the Security Council. It’s just we have differences in how they are approaching it, but we hope to be able to work with them,” US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said.
France's envoy to the UN, Gerard Araud, also criticised the draft, saying it was unbalanced and needed "a lot of amendments."
Western diplomats believe a firm Security Council resolution backed by Russia, Syria's longstanding ally, could make a real difference to the crisis.
In related news, Syrian rebels  claimed to have killed 27 members of the security forces in clashes on Thursday, increasing fears that the country is descending into an armed insurgency, or worse, civil war. As the Syrian uprising entered its 10th month, Human Rights Watch named 74 senior officials and commanders, including Assad, who it said should face investigation for crimes against humanity.
The United Nations says 5,000 civilians have been killed in Assad's crackdown on protests inspired by uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world. Assad has denied any orders were issued to kill demonstrators and says gunmen have killed 1,100 of his forces.