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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Abbas envoy meets Syrian vice president

2007-06-18

DAMASCUS - Syrian Vice President Faruq Al Shara met an envoy from Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Sunday for talks on the ‘crisis’ in Gaza following the territory’s takeover by Hamas Islamists. Shara told Abbas Zaki of his ‘regret’ at the situation in Gaza, where more than 110 people have been killed in fighting between Hamas and president Abbas’s secular Fatah movement over the past week, the official SANA news agency reported. He called during the meeting in Damascus for an end to ‘escalation and avoidance of provocations which divide the Palestinian people,’ according to the agency. Zaki presented a message for Syrian President Bashar Al Assad from Abbas, who on Sunday named an emergency cabinet to replace the Palestinian unity government dominated by Hamas. He said that Syria, where several senior Hamas figures including its political supremo Khaled Meshaal are based, had an important role to play in supporting inter-Palestinian dialogue and ‘finding solutions.’ "Please don't let them kill us!"

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Veteran diplomat takes over as Syrian FM

2006-02-13

DAMASCUS - Syria’s new Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, who has taken over from long-serving Faruq Al Shara, is a skilled career diplomat and expert in international politics regarded as a relative moderate. Muallem, 65, was deputy foreign minister from January 2005 up to his appointment on Saturday, replacing the man who for more than two decades held the foreign portfolio before being named Syrian vice president. After six years of heading the foreign ministry bureau in Damascus to 1990, Muallem was appointed ambassador to the United States where he further honed his diplomatic skills in the decade from 1990 to 2000, serving as part of Damascus’s diplomatic frontline with the West. This experience led to him later taking part in a series of informal meetings in 2002 and 2003 between Syrian and US experts. These aimed to promote dialogue between Washington and Damascus, which the US was threatening with sanctions. Viewed in diplomatic circles as a moderate for a bloodthirsty, fascist regime, Muallem was entrusted by Syrian President Bashar Al Assad with several delicate missions, including a number of trips between late 2004 and early 2005 to Beirut. His task was to improve the deteriorating relations between Syria and Lebanon which was echoing increasing calls for Damascus to pull its troops out after nearly three decades of military presence in its tiny neighbour. The new foreign minister joined the diplomatic corps in 1964, holding posts in missions in Riyadh, Madrid and London before becoming ambassador to Romania in 1975, a position he held until 1980. A graduate of Cairo University, with a degree in economics and political science, Muallem is also the author of several works on modern history.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Mubarak in Syria to discuss Lebanon

2005-10-29

DAMASCUS - Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak arrived in Syria on Friday for talks with President Bashar Al Assad as pressure mounted on Damascus over the February murder of Lebanon’s former prime minister Rafiq Hariri. The official Syrian news agency Sana said Assad and Foreign Minister Faruq Al Shara met Mubarak on his arrival for what it termed a short visit. In Cairo, the official Mena news agency said the talks would focus “on regional matters and especially on Syria and Lebanon following the release of a report into the killing of Rafiq Hariri and subsequent pressure by the United Nations Security Council on Syria.” Arab diplomatic sources said in Cairo that Syria was seeking Egyptian help to counter the pressure from Washington, Paris and London. Who else to give Pencil-Neck advice than one of the oldest thugs in the busniess?

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Syrian FM says media played role in minister’s suicide

2005-10-14

DAMASCUS - Syrian Foreign Minister Faruq Al Shara on Thursday accused the media of having had a hand in the suicide of interior minister Ghazi Kanaan. “Certain media as well as unjust leaks from the commission of inquiry into the killing of Rafiq Hariri concerning events that didn’t take place contributed to killing General Ghazi Kanaan,” Shara told journalists. Hours before his death on Wednesday, Kanaan telephoned a Lebanese radio station to make a “final declaration”, denying unsubstantiated corruption allegations and Syria’s involvement in former Lebanese premier Hariri’s murder. "Lies! All lies! And I'm despressed as hell about them!" “There are media that don’t want to learn any lessons. Some of them contributed to the killing of Ghazi Kanaan,” Shara reiterated, asking “how can these media continue to accuse Syria” over Hariri’s killing. It's easy. And wait til you see what we have on you ... “Kanaan complained about accusations made by certain media. This was clear before his suicide,” he said, comparing allegations in the media to “bullets”. The German magistrate heading a UN probe into Hariri’s murder, Detlev Mehlis, “has promised us that he will deny the (inaccurate) information concerning his meetings with Syrian officials”, Shara said. And he's been pretty quiet so far ... Kanaan’s final phone call was in response to a report by Lebanon’s NTV that he had told Mehlis that he received tens of millions of dollars to push through an electoral law that allowed Hariri to win parliamentary elections in 2000. Kanaan said media reports since Hariri’s February murder had wronged both himself and the former Lebanese premier, whose killing was widely blamed on Syria despite its repeated denials. “As for my testimony, light was shed on the period when I served in Lebanon and I spoke about everything that I was asked,” he said, adding that the commission had the minutes of the interview that backed his own account. “If we had benefited so much from Rafiq Hariri, I don’t understand how we could have killed him,” he said. Sorta answers itself, doesn't it ...

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