Reuters quoted "diplomatic sources in Beirut" as saying that Syria rejected the United Nations' request to meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad regarding the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Diplomatic sources said that Syria informed the International Committee regarding Hariri's killing that the request violated Syrian sovereignty.
In a related context, Abdel Halim Khaddam, the former Syrian Vice President, announced that he met during the past few days in Paris with the investigation committee into the Hariri assassination.
Khaddam, who recently defected from the Syrian regime and made press statements suggesting his involvement - that is, the regime - in the assassination of Hariri, had called in press interviews for the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The former Syrian official explained that he would seek to achieve this through what he called mobilizing the Syrian people to launch a popular uprising, noting that he was working to mobilize the Syrian opposition to create the appropriate atmosphere for the Syrians to overthrow the regime.
Khaddam went on to describe in an interview with the Associated Press that the Syrian people are frustrated and there is a rift in national unity due to the policy of isolation that he said the regime is following, considering that the opposition is growing rapidly, but he saw that the problem lies in “the absence of a person of political weight who can stand in The face of the system.
In its first reaction to Khaddam's statements, the Syrian opposition distanced itself from his positions, questioning the truth of his political intentions, and adhering to what it called the Syrians' desire for popular sovereignty and popular will.
Syrian opposition thinker Michel Kilo confirmed that democracy is an old demand and almost a consensus demand, describing this demand as correct and right, regardless of Khaddam’s intentions, as he put it.
In turn, journalist and former political prisoner Yassin Al-Hajj pointed out the decline of the Syrian regime’s control over the conditions for its external stability, citing its exit from Lebanon and its placement under international surveillance, and “the loss of important regional role tools.”
Al-Hajj also considered that Khaddam’s defection from the regime indicates a decline in the regime’s control over the conditions for its internal stability, expressing his conviction that the issuance of dangerous statements from a figure of Khaddam’s political weight suggests the existence of a plan or understanding with international, regional or local parties, which is something that Al-Hajj confirmed. Syria opens the doors of the unknown towards a major change that may be for the worse or the better.
