Arabs give Syria one day to avoid sanctions

CAIRO (Reuters) - The Arab League said on Thursday it was giving Syria 24 hours to sign a deal to accept Arab monitors under a plan to end an eight-month crackdown on protests, or risk sweeping economic sanctions.

The League, which usually shies away from punishing member states, took the decision at a ministerial meeting after Damascus pursued violent measures against protesters, even though it said it had accepted an Arab peace plan this month.

The pan-Arab body said in a statement it was informing the United Nations and urging it to take "necessary measures according to the U.N. charter to support the Arab League's effort to settle the complicated situation in Syria."

One diplomat said this clause was not intended to provide the basis for foreign intervention, which Arabs have rejected.

A League call for a no-fly zone over Libya in March led to a U.N. resolution that paved the way for NATO air strikes.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said earlier Syria had agreed to sign a protocol to allow in monitors.

But a diplomatic source told Reuters that Syria had called League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby on Thursday morning to say it would wait to see what the ministers decided.

The League statement said Syria was given till Friday to sign the protocol on monitors, or an economic and social panel of ministers would draw up sanctions. Foreign ministers would review those measures at a meeting on Sunday, it said.

"There will be no ministerial meeting if Syria agrees to sign the protocol," Egypt's envoy, Afifi Abdel Wahab, told reporters after the meeting in Cairo.

The Arab League had originally planned to send 500 observers, including military personnel and delegates from human rights and other civil society groups.

The League listed potential sanctions including suspending air flights, stopping dealings with the Syria's central bank, halting commercial trade with Syria's government, freezing government bank accounts and stopping all financial dealings.

It said it would avoid steps that hurt ordinary Syrians.

The statement said Damascus risked penalties "in the case that Syria does not sign the protocol ... or that it later violates the commitments it entails and does not stop the killing or does not release detainees."

FRENCH PROPOSAL

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe gave more details of his proposal for a "secured zone to protect civilians" in Syria and had said he would propose it to the Arab ministers in Cairo.

He said international monitors should be sent to protect civilians, with or without Assad's permission. He insisted the proposal fell short of a military intervention, but acknowledged that humanitarian convoys would need protection.

France's idea for international intervention moves away from a previously shared determination among world powers to avoid any direct entanglement in a core Middle Eastern country.

Arab diplomats said the French idea was not on the agenda at Thursday's meeting. One source said: "There is an open line between France and the Arab League but the proposal was not proposed for discussion in the meeting."

Syria has turned tanks and troops on civilian protesters, as well as on armed insurgents challenging Assad's 11-year rule. The United Nations says more than 3,500 people have been killed.

Syria was not represented at the Cairo meeting because the League has suspended it for not implementing the original peace plan.

The November 12 agreement to suspend Syria was backed by 18 of the League's 22 members. Lebanon, where Syria for many years had a military presence, and Yemen, battling its own uprising, opposed it. Iraq, whose Shi'ite-led government is wary of offending Syria's main ally Iran, abstained.

One source who attended Thursday's meeting said it went smoothly. "All states agreed to the statement and no single Arab state showed any reservations over this statement," he said.

Arab ministers met in a Cairo suburb instead of the League's headquarters in Tahrir Square, occupied by protesters after days of clashes with police in nearby streets.

(Additional reporting by Marwa Awad; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Jon Hemming)