Syria to reject any Arab League initiative to end crisis

Damascus will reject any initiative stemming from this week's Arab League summit to end the year-long crisis in Syria, a foreign ministry spokesman said on Wednesday. "Syria will not cooperate with any Arab League initiative at any level," spokesman Jihad Makdissi said in a statement to AFP. "Since its suspension from the Arab League, Syria has been dealing with member states on a bilateral level," he added. The 22-member pan-Arab body in November voted at an extraordinary meeting to suspend Syria until President Bashar Assad implements an Arab deal to end a crackdown on a revolt which, according to U.N. figures, has left more than 9,000 people dead since March of last year. Arab foreign ministers were meeting in Baghdad on Wednesday, on the eve of the landmark summit, to debate a draft resolution calling on Damascus to end the violence and hold talks with the opposition. Makdissi in his statement made no reference to U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's six-point peace plan, which Annan's camp said had been accepted by President Bashar al-Assad's regime.