Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki told the conference that the Arab League should send a peacekeeping force to help end President Bashar Assad's crackdown.
"The current situation demands an Arab intervention in the framework of the League, an Arab force to keep peace and security, to accompany diplomatic efforts to convince Bashar to leave," he said.
Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al-Thani also called that an Arab force should be created to impose peace in Syria and allow in aid. "There is a need to create an Arab force and open humanitarian corridors to provide security to the Syrian people," he said in a speech at the "Friends of Syria" international meeting in Tunisia.
Meanwhile, the government troops shelled rebel-held areas in central Syria on Friday, killing at least four people, activists said. As government troops continued to pound rebel-held neighborhoods in the besieged city of Homs, thousands of people in dozens of towns across Syria staged anti-regime protests under the slogan: "We will revolt for your sake, Baba Amr," referring to the besieged Homs neighborhood that has become the center of the Syrian revolt.
More than 70 countries are taking part in Friday's "Friends of Syria" meeting, which is expected to press Assad to agree to a cease-fire and allow for humanitarian aid to reach the areas that have been hardest-hit by his security forces. American, European and Arab officials have said the group would likely impose harsher sanctions if Assad rejects the cease-fire, and predicted the regime's opponents would grow stronger if Assad remained in power.
Diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis gained pace Thursday with the appointment of former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan as the joint United Nations-Arab League envoy on the Syrian crisis. Annan said in a statement Friday that he would try to "help bring an end to the violence and human rights abuses, and promote a peaceful solution" in Syria. He expressed hope the Syrian government and opposition groups will cooperate with him in his efforts.
Russia on Friday welcomed Annan’s appointment and called for an immediate cease-fire to evacuate wounded from the city of Homs.
Turkey also called Friday on the Damascus regime to cooperate with Kofi Annan, the new international mediator on Syria, in a bid to find a way to halt almost a year of bloodshed there. "All sides, particularly the Syrian administration, should cooperate with him fully for Annan's goodwill mission for a peaceful solution to the crisis in Syria to be carried out effectively," the Foreign Ministry said.
Tunisian president told the Tunis conference that Assad and his family should be granted immunity from prosecution.
"A political solution must be found, such as granting the Syrian president, his family and members of his regime judicial immunity and a place to seek refuge, which Russia could offer," he said.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe described the Syrian National Council (SNC) on Friday as "the legitimate representative" of the country's opposition, as he arrived for the international meeting in Tunisia.
"We consider the SNC as the legitimate representative of the Syrian opposition... the pole around which the opposition must organize," he said, as he also "solemnly" urged Syria to allow for the evacuation of wounded journalists in Homs.
The French, British and Polish embassies in Damascus were scrambling on Friday to try to evacuate two Western journalists wounded in Syria and the bodies of two others, a Western diplomat told AFP. "The embassies of France, Britain and Poland are working closely together to evacuate the wounded and the bodies of the two journalists who were killed" in the flashpoint central city of Homs, the diplomat said.
Veteran US journalist Marie Colvin, working for Britain's The Sunday Times, and French photojournalist Remi Ochlik, with the IP3 Press agency, were killed on Wednesday when a rocket hit a makeshift media centre in the Baba Amr rebel district of Homs. Edith Bouvier, a reporter for French daily Le Figaro and Sunday Times photographer Paul Conroy were wounded. Both have leg injuries.
The Polish embassy, which has represented US interests in Syria since Washington closed its Damascus embassy for security reasons, is involved in measures to evacuate Colvin's body, the diplomat said.
