The official state news agency quoted the head of the Arab
League delegation, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad Al-Thani, as saying the
talks were "cordial and frank" and that the ministers would meet
Syrian officials again on Oct. 30.
"What is hoped is that the violence will end, a
dialogue will start and reforms will be achieved," Arab League
Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby said before the delegation's departure from
Cairo. The team also has ministers from Egypt, Algeria, Oman, Sudan and Yemen.
In Umayyad Square in central Damascus, tens of thousands of
people gathered for what has become a weekly show of support for Assad
organized by authorities, wire reports said.
The rally took place before the envoys arrived following an
Arab League call on Oct. 16 for the opposition and government to hold a
dialogue within 15 days at the League headquarters in Cairo.
In the central city of Homs, a hotbed of opposition to
Assad, people held a general strike to protest against his crackdown on seven
months of unrest. Residents and activists said most employees stayed at home
and shops were closed in the city of one million. One resident said armed
opponents of Assad enforced the strike. Army gunfire, which killed 11 people
across Syria on Wednesday, also kept people off the streets.
In the town of Hamrat, north of Homs, suspected army
deserters killed nine soldiers in an attack on a bus with a rocket-propelled
grenade, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
