Arab League gives Syria three days to halt “bloody repression” (VIDEO)
Syria’s Bashar al-Assad may be the next leader to fall to the revolts of the Arab Spring. Here Palestinian youths show their support for the anti-Assad protesters in Syria at a demonstration on August 14, 2011 in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
The Arab League says Syria has three days to halt its "bloody repression" of pro-democracy activists, or it will impose sanctions against one of its founding members, Agence France-Presse reported.
At a meeting of the Arab League in Morocco, Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jassim al-Thani said diplomatic efforts were "close to the end of the road," BBC reported.
"If Damascus does not agree to cooperate with the League, sanctions will be adopted against Syria," he said, according to AFP.
In response, angry crowds of Syrians reportedly attacked the embassies of Morocco and the United Arab Emirates in Damascus.
Morocco responded by recalling its ambassador to Syria, hours after France did the same, according to AFP.
Foreign Minister Alain Juppe reportedly told the French parliament: "There has been renewed violence in Syria, which has led me to close our consular offices in Aleppo and in Latakia as well as our cultural institutes and to recall our ambassador to Paris."
France, Germany and Britain are pushing for a UN resolution condemning the Syrian regime for human rights violations in its ongoing crackdown on anti-regime protests, which the UN says has killed more than 3,500 people.
Ministers from those countries announced their decision after the Arab League's emergency meeting in the Moroccan capital, Rabat, VOA reported. They reportedly did not say what would happen if Damascus failed to comply.