Cairo: Two senior Arab League senior officials say the organisation will likely extend its monitoring mission in Syria, with several nations that had been opposed to the extension changing their position in recent days.
The officials said on Friday that the direction within the League is to keep the mission in place as the international community is not yet ready for "escalation" to an intervention in Syria.
Qatar, a harsh critic of the Syrian crackdown on protesters, has called for the dispatch of Arab troops to the country, where 10 months of unrest and crackdown have left thousands dead.
Arab League foreign ministers were set to meet on Sunday in Cairo to discuss the future of a one-month observer mission, which expired on Thursday.
Bureau Report
First Published: Friday, January 20, 2012, 16:37