The Arab League will announce a deal it forged with the Syrian regime to stop the government's brutal crackdown on unrest, Syria's state media reported today. Arab League ministers met with Syrian government officials on Sunday in Qatar to try to find a way to stop the violence against protesters, which has already claimed 3,000 lives, reports Al Arabiya. The Arab League has seemingly reached deals with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad before only to have them fall through. Though Syrian media won't reveal any details of the deal until tomorrow, Reuters summarized the goals of Arab League ministers going into this weekend's talks:
Arab diplomats said the ministers proposed that Syria release immediately prisoners held since February, withdraw security forces from the streets, permit deployment of Arab League monitors and start a dialogue with the opposition.
That would certainly be an improvement over the current violence, but reactions to today's announcement was skeptical. As the Brooking Institution's Salman Shaikh tweeted, "Don't believe the hype - any talk of #Syria regime agreement with [Arab League] is spin. Syrian [conditions should] be unacceptable [to Arab League]. More delay & tactics."
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