Tunisia plans to expel Syrian ambassador

Tunisia was completing the procedures to withdraw its recognition of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and order and expel the Syrian ambassador from Tunis after a violent repression that killed over 200 people in the central city of Homs, the presidency said. “Tunisia has begun formal procedures to expel the Syrian ambassador and to end all recognition of the regime in power in Syria,” said the presidency in a statement. The move came “following the bombardment that made more then 200 people martyrs” and left hundreds wounded in Syria’s protest hub of Homs. The Tunisian presidency expressed its “deep concerns about the massacres perpetrated over more than nine months by the regime against its people.” “There is no solution for this tragedy other than the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the opening of a road towards a democratic transition in Syria,” added the statement. On Saturday, the head of the Arab Parliament, a committee of parliamentarians from Arab League states, called for Arab countries to expel Syria’s ambassadors and sever diplomatic relations over President Assad’s crackdown on protests. “(Arab states) should expel Syrian ambassadors and sever diplomatic relations and economic dealings (with Syria) until the regime complies with the demands of the Syrian people,” Ali al-Salem al-Dekbas, head of the 88-member committee, said in a statement. Arab states have turned decisively against Assad in recent months over a crackdown on opponents of Assad that the United Nations says has killed at least 5,000 people in 11 months. Assad’s government says it is fighting foreign-backed insurgents, and most deaths have been among its troops. Western and Arab nations are trying to overcome Russian resistance to a U.N. Security Council resolution backing an Arab League call for Assad to give up power. The diplomacy has taken on new urgency since activists said overnight that Assad’s forces had killed more than 200 people in the city of Homs. Dekbas said Arab states should confront the Russian delegate to the United Nations, whose delay in taking action “allows for a continuation of....killing of the Syrian people.” He condemned what he said was “the international community standing and watching” violence in Syria, which he described as “crimes against humanity.”