Lebanon urged to attend Friends of Syria meet

Ahmad Hariri, secretary-general of the Future Movement, urged the government Monday to attend this week’s “Friends of Syria” conference in Tunisia aimed basically at calling for a political change in Syria. Meanwhile, Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt scoffed at Syrian President Bashar Assad’s call for a referendum on a new constitution that would create a multiparty system in the country and urged Syria’s allies, Russia and Iran, to help ensure a transfer of power instead of supporting the embattled president. “If we are keen on Syria’s interests then we need to participate,” Hariri told the online Elnashra website, on the subject of a Western and Arab-backed contact group on Syria to be discussed in Tunis on Feb. 24. He said the Future Movement, which is leading the opposition March 14 coalition, had yet to decide on whether to attend the conference which comes after Russia and China vetoed a proposed resolution at the U.N. Security Council calling on Assad to step down. Prime Minister Najib Mikati, whose government has adopted a policy to dissociate itself from the 11-month-old unrest in Syria, has said that Lebanon cannot attend the planned conference in Tunisia. The Future Movement led by former Prime Minister Saad Hariri and its March 14 allies staunchly support Syrian protesters demanding Assad’s ouster in sharp contrast with the Hezbollah-led March 8 alliance which backs the regime in Syria. Citing the presence of Hezbollah, Syria’s main ally in Lebanon, in the Mikati government, Ahmad Hariri said it was unlikely Lebanon would attend the Tunis conference. “Can we expect real participation in light of a government controlled ... by Hezbollah?” Hariri asked. “Do we expect the foreign affairs minister, who has become the official mouthpiece of the regime of Bashar Assad, to participate? Of course not,” he said. Tunisian Foreign Minister Rafik Abdessalem said Monday that Syrian opposition parties would take part in the conference to which EU and Arab League members as well as China, Russia and the United States have been invited. “We believe that on the 24th of this month, we shall send a strong message to the Syrian government,” Abdessalem told reporters in Rome. “There has been enough killing. There must be radical political change.” At least 6,000 people have been killed in a crackdown by Syrian forces on protesters since March of 2011, according to monitoring groups. Jumblatt kept up his harsh criticism of the Assad regime, ridiculing the Syrian leader’s latest call for a referendum on a new constitution amid the “smell of corpses and the dust of rubble” in Homs and other Syrian cities. Jumblatt urged Syria’s regional and international allies, Russia and Iran, to secure an exit for “a clique that has dominated Syria and its people for four decades” instead of supporting the regime at the expense of Syria’s unity. “What a new innovation about which history and political science books will write. It is an innovation of conducting a referendum on the so-called new draft constitution amid the smell of corpses and the dust of rubble in Homs and other Syrian cities and villages along with the crackle of bullets, the echo of cannons and tank shelling and in the absence of any information about the fate of tens of thousands of missing and detainees throughout Syria,” he said in an article to be published by the PSP’s weekly newspaper Al-Anbaa Tuesday. “What a new innovation calling for a theoretical abolition of Article 8 of the Constitution which stipulates that the Baath Party is the leader of the society and the state while tens of parties similar to the Baath [Party] will be created as a means to fully control all aspects of the state, its institutions and installations, while continuing to suppress the Syrian people who are demanding their legitimate political rights which they have been denied for years,” he added. Last week, Assad, facing the most serious challenge to his 11-year rule from the uprising, ordered a referendum on a draft constitution on Feb. 26 that limits the presidency to two seven-year terms and allows for multiple parties. Syrian opposition groups have rejected the new constitution and urged voters to boycott the vote. They maintained that Assad’s departure is the only solution. Jumblatt implicitly criticized Syria’s allies, Russia, China and Iran, which have supported Assad’s stay in power and his reform plans. “What a new innovation to see big powers supporting this so-called theatrical play of a referendum while [these countries] provide military, intelligence, and security support for the Syrian regime ... while at the same time they repeat their rejection of foreign intervention,” he said. “Instead of these countries seeking to secure an exit for a clique that has dominated Syria and its people for four decades, we see them clinging to the regime even at the expense of Syria’s unity and its future,” Jumblatt added. Jumblatt reiterated his call for the Syrian Druze not to join the Shabbiha, or armed thugs, fighting anti-regime protesters. “The future is for the free people in Syria, and your natural position is to stand by them,” he said. Meanwhile, deputy head of Hezbollah’s Executive Council Sheikh Nabil Qaouk launched a scathing attack Monday on the March 14 parties, accusing them of arming the Syrian opposition and using the unrest in Syria in a bid to regain power in Lebanon. “Where is the ‘Lebanon First’ slogan? They have stomped on this slogan and now their slogan has become ‘Syria First’ because through Syria they want to return to power,” Qaouk told a Hezbollah rally in the southern town of Adloun. “They [March 14] traded in slogans in the past. But now they deal in arms and incitement in Syria.”