Assad’s comments on the North have positive side
Change and Reform bloc MP Salim Aoun said, in an interview with al-Markaziah news agency on Friday, that the language and behavior of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad signaled that Syria would help the region head toward peace and stability.
“Critics of Assad’s comments must look to the positive side,” Aoun said, referring to Assad’s suggestion on Thursday that extremism was on the rise in northern Lebanon and that President Michel Sleiman should deploy troops there. He said that Syria had in the past been “accused of fundamentalism and confrontation,” but is “speaking today about peace and stability in the region.”
Aoun said that an accumulation of events in the North might give Syria the chance to strengthen its position, in case it was asked by “big states” to intervene.
He said that the March 14 alliance had given Syria the opportunity to reassert its political position. Aoun said that it critical that all heated political rhetoric cease, because it only inflames tensions in the North, where the atmosphere is already the most volatile than anywhere else in the country.