Aoun After Open Heart Talks with Assad: Those in Beirut Should Start Apologizing
Change and Reform Bloc leader Michel Aoun on Wednesday said he held "open heart" talks with Syrian President Bashar Assad and advised "those in Beirut to start apologizing" to Syria.
"Our meeting today is a promise of a prosperous future," Aoun told a packed press conference.
Aoun said he was offering his "friendship to Syria."
"As long as there is a will … we would certainly work out solutions to previous pending problems and agree on a new approach that respects interests of both states," he added.
"We were foes, but never enemies," Aoun said of his past experience with Syria that resulted in his defeat on Oct. 13, 1990.
His talks with Assad covered, among several topics, the issue of missing Lebanese citizens.
"Committees are tackling this issue. They are achieving progress and, certainly, they would reach a result," Aoun said.
He said relations with Washington are like "unstable weather, sometimes sunny, sometimes cloudy."
The new U.S. administration, Aoun said, should change "strategy" in the Middle East, not "just the behavior … if they don”t, they would be defeated."
He declared commitment to the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their pre-Israel homeland, stressing that "those who created the problem should be responsible for the solution, not the states that have been burdened by it for over 60 years."