UNITED NATIONS: UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi will hold talks with Arab League leaders in Cairo on Sunday and wants to visit Damascus in the days after, his spokesman said.
 
Brahimi, who has named a Moroccan-born Canadian, Mokhtar Lamani, as head of his mission's Damascus office, is working on final details of a visit to the conflict-stricken Syrian capital, spokesman Ahmad Fawzi told AFP.
 
The talks at the Arab League headquarters starting Sunday will be his first official trip to the region since taking over from Kofi Annan as the international envoy on the conflict.
 
"We are working on the final details of a plan to visit Damascus and it will happen quite soon if all the details fall into place," Fawzi said.
 
According to UN diplomats, Brahimi has been seeking guarantees that he will get a proper meeting with President Bashar al-Assad before he goes to Damascus.
 
The United Nations has kept a small office open in Damascus which is run by Brahimi's mission.
 
The new official named to head the office will be a key link between the international medidation effort and Assad's government and opposition rebels, said Fawzi.
 
"Mr Brahimi will lead the main negotiating effort but he needs a senior person to engage with the government, to engage with the opposition, to civil society," Fawzi said.
 
Lamani was previously the Organisation of the Islamic Conference representative to the United Nations and the Arab League representative to Iraq in 2006-2007.