The Arab foreign ministers will hold an urgent meeting at the Arab League (AL) headquarters in Cairo next Sunday on the Syrian issue, the AL deputy chief said Sunday.

The meeting will be chaired by Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, who also heads an Arab ministerial committee in charge of handling the Syrian crisis, AL Deputy Secretary General Ahmed bin Helli was quoted by Egyptian official news agency MENA as saying in a statement.

The meeting will discuss a report by Sheikh Hamad and AL Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi, who are at the United Nations seeking support for the AL peace plan for the Syrian crisis, Helli said.

The ministers will also discuss the status of the AL observer mission in Syria, which has already been suspended, to decide whether to withdraw the monitors or alter the nature of their mission, he added.

The pan-Arab body decided on Saturday to suspend its observer mission in Syria in order to protect the observers from increasing violence there.

The Syrian government has said that the country's turmoil is plotted by terrorists and foreign-backed armed gangs, and more than 2,000 army and security personnel have been killed during the months-long unrest.

The United Nations put the death toll in the Syrian unrest at more than 5,000.