Syria sets terms for admitting observers

Syria has "responded positively" to an Arab League request to send observers to the country as part of a peace plan to end the nation's eight-month crisis, the Foreign Ministry said Monday. But there appeared to be serious stumbling blocks. Syria demanded that the Arab League scrap recent decisions taken against Damascus, including economic sanctions and suspension of the country from the Arab League, before the protocol is signed. "We are waiting for the Arab League's response and all decisions taken by the League in Syria's absence should be annulled," Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi told reporters in Damascus. Syria's top diplomat Walid Moallem "responded positively" to the League and sent a letter to the organization's chief Nabil Elaraby on Sunday night, Makdissi said. He said Moallem's message combined some "minor amendments that won't affect the essence of the plan." In Cairo, Elaraby said he was consulting Arab foreign ministers on Syria's response to the League's Sunday deadline for Damascus to accept the observer mission. He confirmed Moallem's letter contained "conditions and demands." An increasingly isolated Syria on Monday imposed retaliatory sanctions on former friend Turkey. In a display of muscle that could be intended to deter any idea of foreign military intervention in a crisis which has killed at least 4,000 people, the army staged a big exercise with missiles, rockets, tanks and helicopters. Top generals watched the war games and state television made it their headline news story, as the death toll mounted. Five civilians were killed by security forces in Homs, according to the website of Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Four died when troops fired on a funeral procession and one man was shot at a hospital. A youth died of gunshot wounds sustained at the weekend. In southern Deraa province, three members of the security forces were shot dead by army defectors in front of the Dael courthouse, the website reported. The corpse of Ismail Aqla Al-Amri, 35, was handed back to relatives in Deraa, a victim of state torture, it said. Already hit by economic sanctions from the United States and Europe, Syria was punished last month by regional countries, with sanctions announced by the Arab League and imposed by Turkey, once Assad's ally. Syria responded to Turkish sanctions by imposing a tariff of 30 percent on its imports and prohibitive duties on fuel and freight. State news agency SANA quoted a pro-Assad economist as saying Turkey would be "the biggest loser."