Arab League Says Arabi to Visit Syria Saturday

The Arab League said its secretary general, Nabil al-Arabi, will visit Syria on Saturday, three days later than originally planned amid a deadly crackdown on an anti-regime protests in the country.

"It was decided that the Arab League secretary general will visit Syria on Saturday during a telephone conversation between (Arabi), Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem and Syria's envoy at the League," the pan-Arab group's deputy leader, Ahmed Ben Helli, told reporters in Cairo.

Arabi had been scheduled to visit Syria on Wednesday, but the regime in Damascus postponed the trip at the eleventh hour "due to circumstances beyond our control."

He had been commissioned by the 22-member bloc to travel to Damascus with a 13-point document outlining proposals to end the government's bloody crackdown on dissent and push Syria to launch reforms.

According to a copy of the document seen by Agence France Presse, Arabi was to propose Assad hold elections in three years, move towards a pluralistic government and immediately halt the crackdown.

The initiative, agreed at an Arab foreign ministers' meeting in Cairo last month, calls for a "clear declaration of principles by President Bashar al-Assad specifying commitment to reforms he made in past speeches."