Arab League chief to travel to Syria

Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby will travel to Damascus to try to persuade Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to stop violence against protesters, the Arab League said on Sunday. Elaraby will present the Arab League’s proposals aimed at ending a political crisis in Syria to Assad, the foreign ministers of the Arab League’s 22 member states said in a communique issued after their emergency meeting in Cairo. The ministers gathered in the Egyptian capital late on Saturday to discuss the situation in Libya and Syria hit by popular uprisings. Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem did not arrive at the meeting. Syria was represented at the talks by its permanent envoy to the 22-member organization of Arab states.In his address to the participants in the talks, Elaraby said it was "pointless to use force to suppress uprisings that demand radical changes." The government crackdown on protesters in Syria continues amid growing international condemnation of the Assad regime. The United Nations has put the death toll from the five-month unrest, which the Assad government has blamed on "armed gangs coordinated from abroad," at more than 2,200 people. On Saturday, Iran, Syria's closest ally, for the first time publicly pressed Assad's government to meet the "legitimate demands" of the Syrian public, warning Assad of "unprecedented repercussions" of a power vacuum that may emerge in the country hit by the unrest. The meeting took place amid dramatic developments in Libya, where rebels have established control of most of the country's territory, including the capital of Tripoli, over the past week. Gaddafi has fled the capital and his whereabouts remains unknown. For the first time in decades, Col. Muammar Gaddafi's government officials were not representing Libya at the meeting. Instead, the head of the opposition National Transitional Council, Mahmoud Jibril, attended the talks. His appearance at the meeting was greeted with applause. Instead of Gaddafi's traditional green flag, the rebel's tricolor flag was raised at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo. Arab and Western media reports suggested on Saturday that Gaddafi, who has ruled the North African country for more than 40 years, fled to neighboring Algeria as a convoy of Mercedes vehicles was reported to have crossed the Libyan-Algerian border earlier in the day. Algeria has denied the report. Libyan rebels have promised a bounty of $1.7 million for the capture or killing of Gaddafi. The talks took place ahead of a high-level international conference on Libya to be hosted by France in Paris on September 1. Arab countries have been invited to the talks among others. In Syria, continues amid growing The United Nations has put the death toll from the five-month unrest, which the Assad government has blamed on "armed gangs coordinated from abroad," at more than 2,200 people. On Saturday, Iran, Syria's closest ally, for the first time publicly pressed Assad's government to meet the "legitimate demands" of the Syrian public, warning Assad of "unprecedented repercussions" of a power vacuum that may emerge in the country hit by the unrest.