Syria's President Bashar al-Assad on Saturday said that the current developments in Lebanon seem to be an outcome of a new international plot, which started with the issuance of UN resolution 1559, continued with the assassination of Lebanon's ex-Premier Rafiq al Hariri and ended with the formation of the international investigation commission. “Targeting Syria and Lebanon is a part of an integrated project to blow up the identity of the region in order to reshape it under new titles to meet Israeli aspirations which aim at imposing its hegemony on the region and on its resources,” the Syrian president said in Damascus.
“Syria has been in the heart of the events not because of its geographic location or because of its political, social and human link to the main conflict areas but because of its role, history and position,” Assad stated.
Assad underlined that Syria has been crystal-clear regarding the investigation of Hariri’s assassination, stressing Syria will continue cooperating in the future with the investigation for reaching the truth on the basis of sovereignty and national interests.
In his address at the Arab Bar Association Conference, the Syrian president added: “Syria’s interest meets with the investigation interest, just when the investigation is honest but if there is somebody who thinks that politicizing the investigation and diverting it from its natural course can push Syria to do what they want, he will be wrong and wasting time and opportunity to establish stability in the region and he will be affected negatively.”
In his speech, Assad said also all roads have been blocked before the Middle East peace process not only because the Israeli governments' rejection to respond to peace requirements and continuous denial of the Arab rights, but the current international situation which can not allow to push the peace process forward.
On Iraq, Assad said that the Iraqi issue is a political, pan-Arab and moral earthquake to the Arab Nation and has created a new reality in the Middle East. “Phenomenon of terrorism has begun to expand threatening to sabotage the national and social texture of the countries in the region due to wrong international and regional pre-mediated stances regarding the Arab Nation,” al-Assad said, pointing out that terrorism phenomenon is being used as a tool by some forces that allege combating terrorism to terrorize the others.
