KHARTOUM: Arab leaders expressed their support for Syria’s leadership and rejected US pressure and the threat of sanctions on Damascus at the Arab League summit here yesterday.
The summit’s chairman, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, appealed for a stabilisation in relations between Syria and Lebanon.
“Out of solidarity, we have to look to Syria and Lebanon and support them in the face of pressure that Syria is facing through unjust laws ... and we support a free will and independent decision for Lebanon,” Bashir said.
The chairman of last year’s summit, Algerian President Abdulaziz Bouteflika, said that Syria and Lebanon enjoy “extraordinary ties.”
“As much as we are keen on revealing the truth about the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, we also call on our brothers in Syria and Lebanon to maintain their brotherly close ties that bind the two brother nations since old times,” Bouteflika said.
During his opening speech on Monday, Bouteflika praised the democratic elections in the Palestinian territories, saying it was wrong for Western countries to distance themselves from the Palestinians because of Hamas’s election victory.
“There is no reason to punish the people,” he said.
The 18th Arab League Summit kicked off on Monday with key Arab leaders, including Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, absent from the meetings that were expected to tackle a number of thorny regional issues.
Observers expressed surprise that important issues such as the escalating violence in Iraq and political assassinations in Lebanon were widely ignored by delegates during debates.
A small success was scored by Arab foreign ministers who, meeting two days earlier to set the agenda for the summit, rejected any US or Israeli pressure on Syria and stressed Lebanon’s right to sovereignty.
The Arab ministers’ proposal comes following a visit by UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen to Lebanon during which he called on Syria to open an embassy in Lebanon in compliance with UN Security Council resolution 1559 which demanded Syrian troop withdrawal from its neighbour.
Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Fawzy Saloukh said in a statement that the issue of diplomatic exchange between Syria and Lebanon has not yet been brought up.
“We thank Mr Terje Roed-Larsen but exchange of diplomatic relations between Syria and Lebanon concerns only these countries,” Saloukh said.
“Syrians welcome it and we do too but it should only be brought up at the appropriate moment.” – DPA |
