U.N. Could Train Arab League Syria Observers

U.N. human rights experts may train Arab League observers monitoring the Syrian government's deadly crackdown on opposition protests, a U.N. spokesman said Thursday.

The announcement came the day after Qatar's prime minister sought help from U.N. secretary general Ban Ki-moon, saying the Arab League mission in Syria had made "some mistakes".

Ban and Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani discussed "practical measures how the United Nations could assist the observer mission," U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky told a briefing.

He said staff for U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay could help the Arab League observers.

"So this will be a small scale undertaking to train observers from the League of Arab states. This is something that is under discussion with the League of Arab states for the moment," Nesirky said.

Sheikh Hamad said after his meeting with Ban on Wednesday that the Arab League was conducting the first mission of this kind in Syria and "there are some mistakes."

The sheikh would not say what the mistakes were though Syrian opposition groups say the monitors have been kept under too tight a rein in the country and that hundreds of people have been killed despite the presence of the monitors.

"This is the first experience for us. I said we have to evaluate what sorts of mistakes" have been made, the Qatari prime minister said, according to the Kuwaiti news agency KUNA.

"There is no doubt for me. I can see there are mistakes, but we went there not to stop the killing but to monitor."

Arab League ministers are to discuss the mission at a meeting on Saturday. Sheikh Hamad said ministers "will see whether we can continue the mission or not and how we can continue the mission."