Foreign ministers of the six- nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) will hold consultations with their counterparts from Arab League countries on Syria within the framework of an Arab League ministerial meeting in Cairo on Sunday. The Arab League foreign ministers were due to meet on Sept.3, but moved up the meeting in light of advancing plans for a possible US-led strike on Syria.
Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg, a top GCC official, told Arab News on Saturday that “the meeting of the GCC foreign ministers has posponed and it will now be held next week.” GCC foreign ministers, who were earlier sheduled to hold the 128th regular ministerial session in Jeddah on Sunday, will now be travling to Cairo to attend the meeting of Arab League Foreign ministers, he added.
This meeting comes five days after Arab League delegates condemned syrian President Bashar Assad for an alleged chemical attack on a Demascus suburb, but stopped short of supporting any US-led strike on syria. The Arab League foreign ministers will discuss the pros and cons of an attack on Syria in Sunday’s meeting.
An official source declined to say what position GCC and Saudi Arabia would take at the Arab League meeting. The Arab League, which suspended Syria’s membership in November 2011 and gave its seat to the main opposition group, squarely accused the Assad regime of carrying out a chemical weapons attack in Damascus on Aug.21.
US Secretary of SJohn Kerry cited the Arab League on Friday among allies “ready to respond” to the chemical weapons attack.
for months, Saudi Arabia has been the most vocal country calling for international action againest the Assad regime, which has killed more then 100,000 innocent people, including women and children, to date.
A preliminary US government assessment of last week’s chemical weapons attack in Syria has made startling key findings. It has 100 videos attributed to a suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria “showing large numbers of bodies exhibition physical signs cobsistent with, but not unique to, nerve agent exposure.” Some videos show no visible injuries.”
Kerry has also advanced what he called a “clear and compelling case” that Syria was responsible for a chemical attack that killed nearly 1,500 people. A large number of people, including women and children, are still suffering from various ailments following the Aug.21 chemical attack.
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