Ansamed

(ANSAmed) - BEIRUT, NOVEMBER 24 - A few hours before the beginning of the Arab ministers' meeting in Cairo to decide what steps to take concerning Syria, whose Arab League membership was suspended following the persistent suppression of anti-regime civilians, the possibility of sanctions being imposed on Damascus has become less likely. Reports were in this morning's issue of the Saudi pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al Awsat, which quoted a letter received yesterday from Arab League secretary Nabil Al Arabi from the head of the Economic Department of the inter-Arab organisation, Muhammad Rabia. ''The economic sanctions would end up hitting the population and helping the regime,'' wrote Rabia in his report addressed to Al Arabi. ''We would run the risk of repeating the mistake made in Iraq in the 1990s,'' continued the report, ''when Iraqis suffered from the sanctions and Saddam Hussein's regime prospered under them.'' The Syrian regime has been subject to US sanctions since 2004, renewed by the Obama administration, and since then has not been weakened. (ANSAmed).