Remove tanks from streets, Arab League tells Syria’s Assad

The Arab League today proposed a plan to end seven months of increasingly violent unrest against President Bashar al-Assad's rule, which includes a demand to remove tanks from the streets.

While the pan-Arab group said it awaited a response from Damascus to its suggested road map, which it has handed over to Syrian officials, Assad told Russian Television he would cooperate with the opposition. "We will cooperate with all political powers, both those who had existed before the crisis, and those who arose during it. We believe interacting with these powers is extremely important," Assad said in the interview on Sunday.

Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi told AFP in the Qatar capital of Doha, "The Arab proposal to Syria calls for withdrawing tanks and all military vehicles to bring an immeiate end to the violence and give assurances to the Syrian street," The plan also calls for a dialogue in Cairo between Syrian regime officials and opposition figures.

Arab foreign ministers met their Syrian counterpart Walid Muallem in Doha overnight for talks amid growing fears among regional leaders that unchecked Syrian bloodshed could further inflame the Arab world.

The League had previously set a two-week deadline for the start of talks with the opposition, which expired on Sunday. The committee said it hoped for a Syrian response to its plan today.

"More important than a dialogue is action ... this committee has given a very strong response to the recent killings," Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, whose country presides over the committee, told reporters.