Faisal, Minister of Foreign Affairs, announced Sunday the withdrawal of Kingdom's Arab League monitors from Syria because Damascus had not kept its promises. Saudi Arabia “is withdrawing from the mission because the Syrian government has not respected any of the clauses” in the Arab plan aimed at ending the crisis there, he said, according to the text of a statement he made at a ministerial meeting of the 22-member body in Cairo. He warned of the serious danger in the ongoing situation in Syria, stressing that such danger requires from all Arab states to bear their responsibility before God Almighty. “This situation cannot continue and we won't be false witnesses or be exploited to justify the crimes committed against the Syrian people,” Prince Saud said. He also urged Arab nations to “seriously respect the decisions taken by the council of the Arab League to impose sanctions on Syria, in order to cause it to respect its commitments” to stop the violence. In November, the League slapped strong sanctions on Syria, the first time such severe measures had been taken against one of its own members, freezing commercial transactions with the government and its accounts in Arab states. “These sanctions are still valid, and we have not decided to lift them,” Prince Saud said. Riyadh's move came as foreign ministers of the pan-Arab body met to hear the recommendations of a League panel that the organisation extend its monitoring mission to Syria by a month.
