Arabi demanded Thursday the “rapid deployment” of UN observers to Syria to monitor a ceasefire that is becoming ever more tenuous. “The entire world is waiting for a truce and the observers to be deployed, but unfortunately the fighting has not stopped and every day new victims die,” he said at a League ministerial meeting in Cairo. “The United Nations has had difficulties in sending monitors, and this morning I called (UN and Arab League envoy) Kofi Annan and found him to be as ill at ease as I am” about the situation, Arabi said. “We agreed that I would contact the UN Secretary General (Ban Ki-moon) and I sent him a message about the necessity of a rapid deployment of observers in Syria,” Arabi said. He added that he urged Ban “to take advantage of UN observers already in the region,” without elaborating. “The important thing now is the ceasefire, and this will only happen if a sufficient number of observers are deployed” on the ground, the head of the 22-member pan-Arab organization said. UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous has said it would take at least a month to get the first 100 observers into Syria. He told the Security Council Damascus was refusing to accept monitors from the Western and Arab coalition of countries in the so-called Friends of Syria group that has backed the Syrian opposition. Heglig belongs to Sudan The Arab League also condemned South Sudan's “military aggression” against Heglig, saying the oil-rich border region belongs to Sudan. A statement by Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo also supported what it called Sudan's right to defend itself and called on South Sudan to respect the borders between the two nations and stop what it called its support for rebel movements in Sudan's western Darfur region, south Kordofan and Blue Nile. The meeting, said the statement, “rejects any claims that the Heglig area is disputed.” Sudan is a member of the Arab League. South Sudan seceded from Sudan last year after a referendum held as part of a 2005 peace deal that ended more than 20 years of civil war between the two sides. South Sudanese troops attacked and captured Heglig earlier this month. Sudan says it has recaptured it. The statement called for an international fact-finding mission to assess the material, economic and human damage caused by the attack on Heglig. It said the two nations must resolve their differences through negotiations.
