Arab League ready to host Syrian opposition meeting

The General Secretariat of the Arab League has ended all preparations to host the upcoming Syrian opposition conference in Cairo next Monday, it was announced here today. Deputy Arab League Secretary General Ambassador Ahmad bin Helli stated Saturday that the General Secretariat had sent invitations to more than 200 figures representing all shades of the Syrian opposition inside and abroad, as well as the foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the Security Council in addition to Iraq, the president of the Arab summit; Kuwait, the president of the current session of the Arab League Council, Qatar, the head of the Arab committee on the Syrian crisis, and Kofi Annan, the UN-Arab League envoy on Syria, in addition to the countries which hosted the Conference of the Friends of Syria- Turkey, Tunisia and France. He noted that the meeting is being held on a decision issued by the extraordinary session of the Arab League Council at the level of Foreign Ministers, held in Doha on June 2. Bin Helli underlined that the regional and international participation in the conference will be only in the opening and closing sessions to deliver speeches, while discussions in the two-day meeting will be limited to the Syrian oppositions parts without any intervention. Meanwhile, an international conference on Syria is due to kick off in Geneva later Saturday to discuss Annan's initiative which stipulates the formation of a national unity government if an agreement was reached between the Syrian regime and opposition. The meeting will include Russia and China for the first time along with the Security Council member states, Turkey and the Arab League.