Mansour: Dialogue between Syrian Opposition, Leadership Will End Country’s Crisis

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour stated on Monday that Lebanon chose to distance itself from the Arab League decision on Syria that was taken on Sunday.

He said: “Dialogue between the Syrian opposition and leadership will end the country’s crisis.”

He made his statements upon his return from Cairo where he attended the Arab foreign ministers meeting on the developments in Syria.

Asked by reporters about Saudi Arabia’s decision to withdraw from the Arab observer mission, Mansour commented: “This is the choice of the Saudi authorities.”

“Syria did not reject renewing the mission of the Arab observers, but it rejected the Arab League decision because it violated the country’s sovereignty,” he continued.

“I don’t think matters are headed towards a positive resolution, which may complicate the situation seeing as the decision targeted a country, which is Syria,” added the minister.

“We had previously stressed that only dialogue can end the crisis … and efforts should be exerted to reach a ceasefire between the opposition and Syrian authorities,” he noted.

He voiced fears that the crisis may be internationalized.

The Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo on Sunday decided to go to the U.N. Security Council to seek its support for the Arab League’s decisions aimed at resolving the Syrian crisis.

The Arab League "has decided to go to the U.N. Security Council to seek its support for the Arab initiative and we're not seeking internationalization or a military solution," Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani, the head of an Arab taskforce on Syria, clarified after the meeting.

During the talks, aimed at discussing the fate of the widely criticized Arab observer mission in Syria, the ministers also called on Syrian President Bashar Assad to "delegate his powers to the first vice president (Farouq al-Sharaa), who would have every prerogative to cooperate with a national unity government that would include the opposition. "