Arab League sees 'positive signs' from Syria

The Arab League expects the Damascus regime to sign up "soon" to an observer mission intended to monitor the protection of civilians, the bloc's number two Ahmed Ben Helli said on Saturday. "There are positive signs... I expect the signing will happen soon," Ahmed Ben Helli told AFP ahead of a meeting of an Arab League ministerial commission in Qatar. "It will not be today," he said, before the meeting, which had originally been scheduled to take place in Cairo alongside a now indefinitely postponed emergency foreign ministers' meeting. Announcing the postponement late on Thursday, Ben Helli said negotiations would continue with the Syrian government to try to convince it to implement an Arab plan to end bloodshed which has raged for nine months since it unleashed a deadly crackdown on anti-government protests. The Arab League approved a raft of sanctions against the Damascus authorities on November 27 to punish their failure to heed an ultimatum to admit the observers but Syria said on Sunday that it would allow the mission in on certain conditions. In a letter to the bloc's secretary general, Nabil al-Arabi, Foreign Minister Walid Muallem set a number of terms, notably the withdrawal of the sanctions package. Ben Helli said on Thursday that the League was still holding talks with Syria on its offer. On Friday, hundreds of thousands turned out across Syria for rallies called under the slogan: "The Arab League is killing us -- enough deadlines," in protest at the bloc's failure to take a tougher stance.