Ministers are already gathering in Rabat for a forum on Arab-Turkish cooperation and the ministry said Monday the meeting will take place on the margins.

Egypt’s Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr said Sunday during a visit to Algiers that the goal was to avoid international intervention in Syria.

Meanwhile, Arab League officials met Arab human rights and other groups to discuss ways to protect Syrian civilians from more violent crackdowns.

The League’s dramatic decision to suspend Syria from the organization followed the government’s crackdown on an eight-month-old uprising that the UN estimates has killed more than 3,500 people since mid-March. The vote leaves Syria increasingly isolated.

Syria has called for an emergency Arab summit in an apparent bid to avoid being suspended. The League had said it would meet the rights groups and opposition figures this week.

“The aim of this meeting it to establish a vision for protecting civilians from the grip of the Syrian army,” a League official, who asked not to be identified, said shortly before the meeting with Arab groups started.

League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby led the talks with the Arab organizations which included the Arab Organization for Human Rights and Arab unions for lawyers, doctors and journalists. Some nine groups were involved.

Elaraby had said on a visit to Libya on Sunday that League officials would meet representatives of Syrian groups opposed to Assad on Tuesday but said it was too soon to consider recognizing the Syrian opposition as the legitimate authority.