FRENCH PRESIDENT TO MEET SYRIA AND LEBANON OPPOSITION CHIEFS IN SAUDI ARABIA
Riyadh, 26 Shafar 1435/29 December 2013 (MINA) – The French President Francois Hollande will meet former Lebanese premier Saad Hariri and Syrian opposition leader Ahmed Jarba in Saudi Arabia, where he arrived Sunday, said a member of his entourage.
Until the news revealed, there are no official reports of agenda that will discussed. But, France has been consistently supporting the syrian oppositions and against Lebanon intervention into the country.
The meeting with Hariri, a fierce critic of the Syrian regime, comes amid heightening tensions in Lebanon after the assassination of his close aide, ex-minister Mohammad Chatah, in a car bomb on Friday in Beirut.
Chatah, 62, a former finance minister and close aide to ex-prime minister Saad Hariri, was killed by a car bomb in the Lebanese capital on Friday along with six other people.
Dozens of other people were wounded in the blast, which officials said involved about 50-60 kilograms of explosives, Alarabiya and Mmedia reported as quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA).
Syria has denied the “wrong and arbitrary accusations,” while Hezbollah said the bombing was aimed at destroying “national unity.”
Hariri, the son of former premier Rafiq who was assassinated in a massive car bomb in February 2005, lives outside Lebanon due to security fears.
Former Lebanese premier also criticized the Iran-backed Shiite Hezbollah movement, which is fighting alongside President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in Syria’s civil war.
In an interview published Sunday in pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat, Hollande called for the respect of “constitutional deadlines” in Lebanon, starting with “holding presidential elections in May 2014.”
Syria and Lebanon were under French occupation between 1920–1946. Since independence in 1946, ties have remained strong but relations are sometimes strained because of differences over the Syrian policy in Lebanon.
Relations reached a bottom in 2005 after the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri. High-level bilateral political relations between the two countries only resumed after the signing of the Doha Agreement.
This change has resulted in a succession of contacts and bilateral visits initiated by Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s visit on the occasion of the summit of the Union for the Mediterranean on 13 July 2008, and that of the French President Nicolas Sarkozy on September 3, 2008.(T/P04/E1)
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)
