Syria has agreed to extend a widely criticized Arab League observer mission for a second month, just hours after launching an angry tirade against the bloc's efforts to mediate in the crisis.
League officials had warned that the monitors, already depleted by the withdrawal of the six oil-rich Gulf states from the mission, would be confined to base from Wednesday, Jan 25, if Syria's agreement was not forthcoming.
"Foreign Minister Walid Muallem sent a letter tonight to the secretary general of the Arab League (Nabil al-Arabi) informing him of the Syrian government's agreement to extend the observer mission for one month, from January 24 until February 23, 2012," said a statement carried by the official SANA news agency.
The announcement came after Muallem delivered a stinging attack on the League following its weekend call for President Bashar al-Assad to hand power to his deputy and clear the way for a unity government within two months.
"Enough of the Arab solutions from now," Muallem said, accusing the Arabs of "plotting" to internationalize the crisis and taking decisions while "knowing that they will be rejected" by Damascus.
"We do not want Arab solutions," he told a televised news conference.
Muallem said Syria had no choice but to confront the armed groups that the government holds responsible for the violence which the UN says has killed more than 5,400 people since March, stressing that Russia would never accept foreign intervention.
