US takes initiatives for Syria’s Liberation

US officials held an “unpublicised” meeting with exiled Syrian dissidents in Washington to discuss ways of “weakening the Syrian regime,” according to AFP sources.

The Saudi-owned Asharq Al-Awsat said US officials who attended the meeting last Thursday included Elizabeth Cheney, deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, and John Hanna, an official in the office of her father, Vice President Dick Cheney.

The paper said Elizabeth Cheney’s office confirmed the meeting, which was also attended by Pentagon and National Security Council officials, and comes at a time when the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is under mounting US pressure to end its grip over neighbouring Lebanon.

Cheney’s office, however, refused to give details.

Participants on the Syrian side included Farid al-Ghadri, a US-based businessman who heads the Reform Party of Syria, Zuhdi al-Jasser, Mohammad Khawam, Muwaffak Bunni al-Marjeh, Hussam al-Dairi, Salma al-Dairi and writer Bassam Darwish.

Asharq Al-Awsat said the dissidents lobbied for a policy of regime change in Syria, whereas the administration officials focused on ways of weakening Assad’s government.

The two sides also discussed the possibility of “holding to account” current and former Syrian officials for “committing crimes against the Syrian people.”

Ghadri “did not deny” attending the meeting but declined to give details, the paper reported.

However, he pledged to “continue our political activities whether at the party level or at the level of the Syrian Democratic Aliance, which groups more than 15 political parties and social institutions.”

“We will continue to work with the US government and the European Union,” Ghadri was quoted as saying.

He added that he had received an invitation from the European Parliament to talk about a proposed Syrian-EU association agreement in Brussels later this month.

Syria has started pulling its soldiers out of Lebanon as a result of heavy international pressure, chiefly US and French, following the February 14 assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri in a massive bomb blast in Beirut.

The attack, blamed by the Lebanese opposition on Syria despite denials in Damascus, inflamed public opinion and galvanized momentum to end the near 30-year Syrian military presence in Lebanon.

The meeting in Washington coincided with release of a UN report, which accused Syria of creating a climate of political tension in Lebanon in which the assassination occurred and demanded an international inquiry into the killing.

There could be interesting news on Syria, towards the end of this year.

Source: AFP