ISTANBUL/BEIRUT: Foreign ministers from the Arab League and Turkey will meet in Cairo Sunday to discuss Syria’s failure to respond to an ultimatum to allow an observer mission or face sanctions, Turkey said Friday, as the Syrian military vowed to “cut every evil hand” that targets the country’s security.

Anatolia news agency quoted Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu as saying he would be attending the Cairo meeting, adding that Turkey already had some measures in hand against Damascus.

With the deadline gone, Turkey said Syria’s failure to open its doors to an observer mission heightened concern that Damascus was trying to conceal a worsening humanitarian situation.
He described the ultimatum to accept a mission of several hundred observers or face sanctions as a last chance for President Bashar Assad’s regime.

“Syria was expected to say ‘yes’ to the observers ... unless there is a reality it hides about the situation in Syrian cities,” Davutoglu was quoted as saying by Anatolia.
“As it said ‘no,’ it increased ... the concerns on the humanitarian situation,” he said.

The League extended the deadline after it expired Friday, saying they would wait until the day’s end before deciding what to do. There was still no response late Friday.
The Arab League had earlier said its finance ministers would meet Saturday to vote on sanctions against Damascus – including the suspension of flights and freezing government assets – if Syria failed to sign by Friday.

The League also for the first time said it wants U.N. help in its showdown with Assad. The United Nations said Friday it is ready to support the proposed Arab League 500-strong peace monitoring mission to Syria, providing human rights staff to assist the mission, if it goes.

U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed what he called the league’s “proposal to send an observer mission to protect civilians in Syria” and strongly urged Damascus to give its “consent and full cooperation.”

The Geneva-based office of the United nations High Commissioner for Human Rights was in contact with the league secretariat in Cairo on the matter, he added. Davutoglu warned that Syria would be isolated by Turkey, Arab states and the entire international community if it rejected the Arab proposals, and warned that Ankara could adopt further measures against the regime.

Turkey has been increasingly strident in its criticism of the regime in neighboring Syria, once a close ally, and has already halted joint oil exploration and threatened to cut electricity supplies.
But despite the strong rhetoric, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said Ankara ruled out any military intervention.

Turkey, which is already sheltering about 7,000 Syrian opposition activists who fled their homes, is however mulling plans for a buffer or no-fly zone on its border with Syria.
The French, meanwhile have floated a proposal for “humanitarian corridors” to be set up through which food and medicine could be shipped to alleviate civilian suffering.

The frontier between Turkey’s Hatay province and Syria offers the likely site for such corridors, but the proposal is a work in progress. A Turkish official told Reuters they are still unsure what the proposal entails, and there were many scenarios.

“It depends on whether the violence gets out of hand, if there is a coup, if there is a civil war that gets out of hand. There are many options and many things that could change the scenario,” he said.

Aid agencies like the International Red Crescent would deliver relief and medical supplies to beleaguered population centers, and unarmed monitors could be placed with them to see that the Syrian authorities did not interfere. But for such a scheme to have any chance of success, it would need Syria’s agreement. “So far they haven’t said no, so we may be able to convince them,” said a Western diplomatic source.

Violence continued Friday, with the Syrian military saying 10 military personnel, including six pilots, were killed in an attack on an air force base and that the incident proved foreign involvement in the eight-month revolt against Assad’s rule.

“An armed terrorist group undertook an evil assassination plot that martyred six pilots, a technical officer and three other personnel on an air force base between Homs and Palmyra,” a military spokesman said on state television.
“The general command of the armed forces sees that enemies of the country are behind this terrorist act,” he said. “The armed forces will continue to carry out its mission ... and will cut every evil hand that targets Syrian blood.”

The military has reportedly called up reserve troops and canceled travel grace periods for compulsory military service. A document, cited by The Daily Star, purporting to be issued from the Syrian Arab Republic Army Command military service department, repeals conscripts’ applications for “administrative postponement applications” and cancels any further grace entitlements.”

“All registered students who have already postponed their military service should go ahead and sign up for as soon as the military is officially informed of their graduation,” it said. The document could not be independently authenticated.