Syria agrees to extend Arab monitoring mission

Syria agreed on Tuesday to extend the mission of Arab League observers monitoring implementation of a peace plan aimed at ending 10 months of violence in which thousands of people have been killed.   

Earlier on Tuesday, State news agency SANA said Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem informed the Arab League in a letter that Syria agreed to extend the monitoring mission until Feb. 23.       

The head of the Arab League has asked to meet the United Nations secretary general to seek the U.N. Security Council's support for its latest plan to resolve the crisis in Syria, the League said in a statement on Tuesday.            

It said Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby and Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, who heads the League's committee on Syria, sent a joint letter to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon giving details of the plan for a political solution to end the violence.          

The letter asks for a "joint meeting between them in the U.N. headquarters to inform the Security Council about developments and obtain the support of the Council for this plan," the statement added.      

Foreign Minister Walid Muallem spoke as Gulf Arab countries announced they were pulling their monitors from an Arab League mission in Syria.             
The Gulf Cooperation Council also called on the U.N. Security Council to take all "necessary measures" to force Syria to implement a League peace plan announced Sunday, which Damascus has rejected.            

Muallem brushed off the threat of the Security Council.               

"If they go to (U.N. headquarters in) New York or the moon, as long as we don't pay their tickets, this is their business," he told reporters at a televised news conference.           

He also suggested that the military crackdown will continue.      

It was earlier reported that Arab states will discuss on Tuesday whether to keep peace monitors in Syria, Sudan's envoy to the Arab League said, after Gulf Arab countries announced they were pulling their monitors out.        

Ahmed Ben Helli, deputy secretary general of the League, said the meeting would discuss latest developments in Syria but would not give further details.            

The Arab League demand for a change of government in Syria puts more pressure on the U.N. Security Council to overcome its divisions and take a stand on the bloodletting there.             

A Syrian opposition group condemned the mission's leader, Sudanese General Mohammed al-Dabi, for a report in which he highlighted violence by Assad's adversaries as well as by his security forces.