A delegation of Arab foreign ministers met Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus on Wednesday in a fresh bid to end the country's crisis amid a mass strike that left parts of the country paralysed, DPA reported.
Led by Qatari Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jassim, the delegation, set up by the Arab League on October 16, was to present a plan to implement a ceasefire, release detainees, and begin talks with the opposition.
There was no official word yet on the outcome of the meeting, but according to Syrian state television the talks were "positive."
An Arab diplomat, who is based in Syria and whose country is represented on the delegation, told dpa ahead of the meeting that the Arab ministers would call on al-Assad to start a "serious and transparent dialogue in the country."
The diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described the chances for the mission's success as "low and dim."
The opposition has opposed the Arab proposal for talks with the government, pointing to the bloody crackdown on peaceful protesters.
At least nine people, six of them in the flashpoint province of Homs, were killed on Wednesday in conflict with security forces and pro-government militiamen, according to opposition activists.
Eleven Syrian soldiers, including an officer, were killed in Hama in an attack by alleged army deserters on their armoured vehicle, said the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Syrian government has repeatedly blamed the unrest in the country on "terrorist gangs" financed by certain Western and Arab states to destabilize Syria.
Meanwhile, shops and schools were closed in the restive provinces of Hama and Daraa, the eastern town of Deir al Zour, the northern province of Idlib, and the town of Albu Kamal near the border with Iraq in response to the strike call, online activists said.
On Tuesday, the Syrian National Council, which groups more than 140 opposition leaders, called the strike as part of what it said was an escalation of action against the Syrian government.
"Observing this strike across Syria ushers the revolution of dignity into a new stage of struggle for achieving its objectives," the newly-formed council said in a statement.
The Health Ministry has denied allegations by the human rights organization Amnesty International that patients are being abused in hospitals in some parts of the country.
"The report is full of contradictions and fabrications," the state-run Syrian News Agency SANA quoted a statement by the ministry as saying.
Amnesty on Tuesday accused Syria of turning hospitals "into instruments of repression" against pro-democracy protesters.
The ministry said that such allegations "aim to distort the reputation of the Syrian health sector and create a state of lack of confidence in the national hospitals to serve biased purposes."
The United Nations estimates that more than 3,000 people, including 187 children, have been killed in the government's clampdown on pro-democracy protests, which started in mid-March. Reporting on the unrest is severly restricted.
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