Kuwait: Arab League to Hold Emergency Meeting on Houla Massacre

Arab League foreign ministers are to hold an emergency meeting on a massacre in Syria in which U.N. observers say government forces killed 92 people, the bloc's current president Kuwait said on Sunday.

"Kuwait will contact members of the Arab League to hold an emergency ministerial meeting to study the situation and take measures to put an end to the oppressive practices against the Syrian people," said a foreign ministry statement cited by the official KUNA news agency.

Kuwait has also made contacts at regional and international levels "to urge the international community to assume its responsibility to stop the bloodshed," the ministry said.

It strongly condemned the "brutal crime carried out by the Syrian regime forces in the town of Houla which resulted in the killing of dozens, most of them children and women."

UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan called Saturday for an urgent Arab League meeting, saying the "massacre shows the failure of Arab and international efforts to stop the violence against civilians in Syria."

The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, grouping Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, also urged the international community to "assume its responsibilities."

Hundreds of Kuwaitis including several MPs rallied outside the Syrian embassy on Saturday to condemn the massacre. The protesters demanded that the Kuwait government send arms to the rebel Free Syrian Army.