Arab foreign ministers have been arriving in Iraq ahead of a landmark summit to discuss the crisis in Syria as the country's disparate opposition groups agree to join forces.
The ministers are expected to thrash out a draft resolution later on Wednesday urging an end to the yearlong bloodshed.
Iraq is hosting an Arab League summit for the first time since Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. It is seen as a test for Iraq to show how it has fared since the last U.S. troops withdrew in December.
Arab heads of state will convene in Baghdad on Thursday, when they are due to hear from UN and Arab League envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan.
“The Syrian subject will have a significant place in discussions,” the al Arabiya television channel quoted Arab League Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi as saying on Tuesday.
Arabi said he expected the ministets' meeting and the Arab leaders' summit to support a peace plan proposed by Annan and accepted by the Syrian government on Tuesday. The plan envisages a UN-supervised ceasefire and political dialogue.
Russia has backed the plan, and President Dmitry Medvedev said Annan's mission might be "Syria's last chance to avoid a protracted and bloody civil war."
However, opposition groups have dismissed the initiative, saying it would allow the Damascus government to continue its crackdown on rebels.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been criticized for failing to deliver on earlier pledges of reform.
Attendance at Thursday's meeting is expected to be low as only ten Arab leaders have pledged to show up, the League's deputy leader, Ahmed Ben Helli, told the al-Itaqiya news network.
The Baghdad summit comes after Syria's splintered opposition factions agreed to unite behind the Syrian National Council (SNC). After two-day talks in Istanbul, delegates said in a statement on Tuesday that they had "decided that the SNC is the formal interlocutor and formal representative of the Syrian people."
The meeting also agreed to restructure the group, in what one SNC member described as a "last-minute" deal.
