Prime minister Hariri who has held three hour talks on Saturday with president Assad, and further talks with vice president Abdel Halim Khaddam, denied that his meeting with president Assad “is a new backing to his government”. He was quoted saying the meeting was an opportunity to discuss the latest developments, including his last recent visit to Saudi Arabia where he met King Fahd and senior Saudi officials. Hariri, who spent so far 54 months in power, quoted ” If someone release me of the job I’ll be thankful to him”. Observers say such release of the post of the prime minister for Hariri is not under discussion neither locally, nor in Syria, nor regionally.
Syrian vice president Abdel Halim Khaddam, in a press interview with the Syrian official news agency SANA, accused all those who demand withdrawal of the Syrian forces from Lebanon of “wanting to blow at the national unity and resume civil war”. He assured that the decision to pull out the Syrian forces is linked to “the Lebanese state’s decision”. Mr. Khaddam reiterated that “Without the Syrian intervention in 1976, the state of war would have been going on until now”. He said the war was not between Palestinians and Lebanese, or between Muslims and Christians, but it was spread over to every quarter in Lebanon. He refered to wars that had erupted inside communities and parties.
