Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Moallem held a press conference in which he assured that suspending Syria from its membership in the Arab League was a dangerous step on the present and future of the joint Arab work.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Moallem held a press conference Monday in which he assured that suspending Syria's Arab League membership was a dangerous step on the present and future of the joint Arab work; and that it was planned since the meetings on Syria had begun, as information revealed that the AL’s secretariat-general and one member state had requested a legal study on the conditions required for suspending a member state, to be used later on.

“This indicates that a decision to take action against Syria was present since the beginning,” he said.

Al-Moallem also reiterated that “a meeting for the Arab foreign ministers was held in a hotel and not at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo on the 16th of October. The Syrian delegation was not invited, and the issue of suspending Syria's membership was proposed then, but several Arab states rejected this decision.”

The Syrian foreign minister presented the document of the legal study and reassured that it is evidence that the suspension decision was illegal based on that.

In parallel, he pointed out that "Syria has agreed on implementing the first Arab initiative, but soon after that escalation started and the armed operations were accelerated on the ground…The US statements constituted a provocation for the foreign interference in Syria without any response from the Arab League."

"We are determined to carry out the Arab work plan as it comes in line with the plan of the Syrian leadership on stopping the violence…The Arab work plan must be accompanied by monitoring the borders by the neighboring countries to prevent weapons smuggling and to stop financing the armed terrorist groups,” Al-Moallem continued.

On another level, the Syrian foreign minister asked the Syrian people not to worry as "Syria is not Libya, and the Europeans are suffering today economically because of their war on Libya which reportedly cost up to 240 billion dollars, in addition to the destruction in Libya that was estimated by 400 million dollars.”

“Due to that I’m not worried, because their continuous economic sanctions against Syria are aimed at the regime,” he added.

Al-Moallem also indicated that Syria was one of the founding members of the Arab League and that this organization was initially formed for the Palestinian cause.
He asked: “But what did it do for the Palestinian cause?”
“Syria could never change its stances and its duty towards this cause, it has sacrificed a lot for Palestine and it lost Golan for Palestine,” he added.