Calls for West to Stop Pressuring Syria
Syria Media Report, 02-March-09
Calls for West to Stop Pressuring Syria
Syria Media Report, 02-March-09
Countries should not make dialogue with Damascus contingent upon Syria’s relationship with Lebanon, said a February 20 report in the official newspaper Al-Thawra.
Lebanon is an independent country that doesn’t need protection from other countries, particularly those in the West, wrote editor-in-chief of Al-Thawra, Asad Abboud.
He decried recent pressure from the US and others for Syria to send an ambassador to Beirut after last year’s historic establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
Syrian president Bashar al-Assad told UK newspaper the Guardian that he would not be pressured into making gestures.
“We will not send an ambassador to Lebanon because Britain, France and the US want us to,” he said in an interview published on February 17. “This is a sovereign issue. We are not doing it for Europe or for anyone else.”
Abboud said that those countries which have shown interest in improving their relationship with Syria must stop using the “Lebanon issue” as an excuse for delaying real dialogue.
