17 March 2010 / AP, BEIRUT
Syria is ready to meet with a Lebanese politician who was one of its harshest critics in the past years and open a new page in relations, days after he said his comments about Damascus were “improper,” the Hezbullah group said.
A reconciliation between Walid Jumblatt, leader of Lebanon’s Druse sect, and Damascus could boost Syria’s role in Lebanese politics years after its troops were forced out of the country. It will also probably weaken the Western-backed coalition that Jumblatt once helped lead until he split with them in August. Lebanon’s Hezbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah has been mediating between the Syrians and Jumblatt for several months. A Hezbullah statement released late Monday said Nasrallah informed Jumblatt that Syria “will overcome” what happened in the past and open a new page. It added that Syrian President Bashar Assad will receive Jumblatt in the near future. Jumblatt’s harshest verbal attack against Assad came on February 2007 when he told a crowd of tens of thousands of supporters that Assad was a “snake” and a “tyrant” and called for revenge against him.
