Syria reaches agreement with Arab League

Syria and the Arab League (AL) ministerial committee agreed Tuesday on the final document regarding the situation in Syria, the state-run TV reported.

An official announcement in this regard will be made in the AL headquarters in the Egyptian capital of Cairo on Wednesday, said the TV without spelling further details.

The Syrian crisis that has been dragging on for nearly eight months has become lately the focus of feverish Arab activity.

The AL ministerial committee in charge with seeking an end to the crisis in Syria held talks Sunday with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem in Doha, the capital of Qatar, and submitted an Arab plan calling for immediate halt of violence in Syria, dialogue with opposition figures in Cairo and withdrawal of Syrian army from unrest-strewn areas.

The committee is scheduled to hold another meeting in Cairo on Wednesday.

According to observers, the delay in the Syrian response to the Arab plan was because of Syrian government's reservations on the stands of some Arab countries and its reservation on the location of the dialogue. Syria repeatedly said the any dialogue should be held on the Syrian soil.

Syria has overtly charged that some countries are behind the unrest in the country and even fund what it called armed terrorist groups it blames for killing hundreds of policemen and military personnel across the country since the start of violence in mid- March.

Mohammad Habash, a parliamentarian, who heads the "Third Way" movement in the country which advocates a middle-of-the-road opinion between the opposition and the government told Xinhua "the Arab League initiative sounds logical and we hope that Syrian government would positively respond."

George Jabbour, a political analyst, said "there is no solution to the crisis other than dialogue," adding that the AL could be conducive in launching a serious dialogue in Damascus.

Syria has been gripped by anti-government protests that have continued unabated across the country for more than seven months with mounting calls for the downfall of the regime.

Syrian government blamed the unrest on armed groups and thugs acting out a foreign conspiracy, citing the killing of more than 1, 000 army personnel during the turmoil. The United Nations estimated that more than 3,000 people had been killed over the past seven months.