Syrian President Bashar al-Assad launched a tirade against Israel on Saturday, branding it the "major obstacle" to peace in the Middle East and backing the right of resistance to recover occupied land. He said the current state of Middle East peacemaking had exposed the "true nature of this aggressive state."
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and indirect contacts between the Jewish state and Syria have been on ice since Israel's massive offensive against the Gaza Strip in December and January. "The failure of the peace process is a blatant demonstration that Israel is the major obstacle to peace," Assad said in an address to a ministerial meeting of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in Damascus.
"Our experience with Israel during indirect peace negotiations mediated by Turkey is further proof of this." Turkey brokered four rounds of indirect talks between the two foes last year, the first such contacts since previous peace negotiations were broken off in 2000 over the fate of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. But Syria froze the contacts at the turn of the year when Israel launched its 22-day war on Gaza, controlled since June 2007 by the Islamist Hamas movement whose exiled leader Khaled Meshaal lives in Damascus.
"The failure of political methods to recover their legitimate rights gives them the right of resistance," he said, referring to Syrians and Palestinians whose land is occupied by Israel. "A state built on occupation and the massacre of Palestinians, can it really work for peace?" he asked. "A state whose successive governments have prevented all solutions and whose current government is one of the most racist, can it be a partner for peace?"
Assad said peace remained Syria's "strategic objective to restore our rights fully, including occupied land," but underscored what he said was the "large popular support for the forces of resistance in the region."
In his address to the meeting of foreign ministers, OIC secretary general Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu spoke about the "suffering" of the people of the Gaza where he said Israel had committed "flagrant war crimes." Ihsanoglu called for those who committed the crimes to be hauled before international justice and said the world should act to force Israel to end its occupation of Arab land. The 57-member OIC represents 1.5 billion Muslims world-wide.
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