Top military leaders meet in Amman to discuss Syria

Top Western and Arab military official are set to meet on Monday in the Jordanian capital Amman to discuss regional security developments and the prevention of a spillover of the escalating war in Syria into neighbouring countries. The three-day meeting, which opened Sunday, is being co-hosted by Jordan’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Mishaal Zaben and chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey . It also brings together top generals from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Canada, Jordan’s official Petra news agency reported, citing Jordanian military sources. It said the commanders “would discuss regional security and implications of the ongoing crisis in Syria.” A statement by the Jordanian armed forces said the meeting is a “continuation of bilateral and multilateral meetings and will be followed by others in the future aimed at continued coordination between the participating countries to assess current developments and their impact on the regional security in general”. Jordan will seize the opportunity to improve its bilateral military ties with participating countries, the statement added. Jordan’s Foreign Minister Nasser Jouda said on Sunday, in a joint press conference ?with his Egyptian counterpart Nabil Fahmi, that there will be comprehensive discussions ?on all scenarios related to Syria, noting that that talks will include the developments in Syria following the suspected use of chemical weapons against civilians in a Damascus  suburb last week. Meanwhile the Arab League said it will meet on Tuesday to discuss the use of chemical weapons in Syria that reportedly killed hundreds of people. Permanent delegates would gather at the League's Cairo headquarters for "urgent talks" to "study the horrible crime of the use of chemical weapons that killed hundreds of innocent people" in Syria, Ben Helli told reporters on Sunday. Damascus has vehemently denied that it carried out toxic gas attacks on the rebel-held areas and accused the insurgents of mounting a chemical attack on its own troops in the area. Syrian television has said its troops found tunnels in which chemicals were stored in rebel areas overrun by government forces. Russia and Iran, Syria’s main allies, have supported calls for a United Nations inquiry into the attack, with both accusing jihadist groups of having carried it out. The Jordanian military, numbering about 120,000 troops, has been redeploying a large part of its combat units to the northern border with Syria to prevent a spillover of the fighting. Jordanian officials say about 560,000 Syrians have already fled across the frontier.