Member states agree to exclude Syria and impose sanctions over its failure to end government crackdown on protests

This article is more than 8 years old

This article is more than 8 years old

Syria has been suspended from the Arab League over its failure to end the bloodshed caused by brutal government crackdowns on pro-democracy protests in a move that will increase the international pressure on President Bashar al-Assad.

At an emergency session of its 22 member states in Cairo to discuss the crisis, the league decided to exclude Syria until it implements the terms of an earlier agreed peace deal to stop the violence.

The league also agreed to impose economic and political sanctions on Syria over its failure to stop the violence and appealed to its member states to withdraw their ambassadors from Damascus, the Qatari prime minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabr bin Muhammad Al Thani, said.

"Syria is a dear country for all of us and it pains us to make this decision," he said. "We hope there will be a brave move from Syria to stop the violence and begin a real dialogue toward real reform."

However, he said the vote did not signal military intervention as happened in Libya, adding that "no one is talking about a no-fly zone".

"We were criticised for taking a long time but this was out of our concern for Syria," he said. "We needed to have a majority to approve those decisions.

"We are calling all Syrian opposition parties to a meeting at the Arab League headquarters to agree a unified vision for the transitional period."

He also called on the Syrian army to stop its involvement in the killing of civilians.

He said 18 countries had backed the decision while Lebanon, Yemen and Syria voted against and Iraq abstained.

The exclusion will come into effect on Wednesday.

Syria's representative to the Arab League said suspending Damascus breached the organisation's charter and showed it was "serving a western and American agenda", Reuters reported.

Wael Merza, the secretary general of the opposition Syrian National Council, told al-Jazeera the decision marked "a historic day for Syria as a country, the Syrian revolution and the Arab League".

But he added the move could inflame tensions on the ground in the short term.

"Unfortunately, knowing the nature of the regime, we know the violence will be even more harsh in the coming few days," he said.

"But this move isolates the regime to a great extent – economically, diplomatically and politically."

Outside the meeting, hundreds of Syrians waving flags and banging drums celebrated as news of the league's decision filtered out. Children were wrapped in Syrian headbands, singing broke out and passing cars honked their horns in appreciation.

The protesters had called for international protection from Assad's regime. By the side of the road canvas sacks stuffed with straw were laid out like body bags in a morgue, each one scrawled with the name of a different Arab nation undergoing its own political upheaval. Demonstrators said the mock corpses represented the thousands that have been killed across the region in the struggle for liberation.

Mohamed Saidi, an electrical engineer who was born in Homs, flew from his job in Saudi Arabia to join the protests in Cairo. "If Arab unity still means anything, then it must mean something today," he said. "A message has to be sent, and that is 'The killing stops, right now.' We must speak as one on this; everything else is secondary."

The British foreign secretary, William Hague, welcomed the decision to suspend Syria over its repression of political protesters.

He said: "We support the Arab League in its efforts to bring about an end to the killing of Syrian people. The continuing violence is deplorable and must stop."

The league's decision comes as November looks likely to become the bloodiest month yet in Syria's eight-month-old uprising. More than 250 Syrian civilians have been killed in the past 11 days as the regime besieges cities, especially Homs and Hama, along the border with Lebanon and Idlib in the north.

The Syrian peace arrangement reached at the start of November involved government troops and tanks being withdrawn from these regions. However, violence between regime security forces and opposition groups has not slowed since. In Homs, at least nine people were killed in battles on Friday between security forces and armed opposition groups, including defectors. Another seven people were killed in other parts of Syria.

The deal's failure had damaged the standing of the pan-Arab body, which has largely remained flat-footed as revolutions rumbled across the Middle East this year.

Human Rights Watch has accused the Syrian regime of committing crimes against humanity throughout the uprising, which has killed more than 3,500 civilians and about 1,500 members of the security forces.