By KUNA
Damascus : Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, in his addsress to opening session of the Arab summit on Saturday, said regional security can only be achieved through peace, not aggression.
Al-Assad, addressing the top leaders, who convened here within the framework of their 20th summit, said Israel cannot press for security unless it gives priority to ending occupation of Arab territories “for occupation contradicts both security and peace.”
Al-Assad said Syria has expressed its desire on many occasions for establishing peace “and Israel has also seized many opportunities for proving the opposite, to assert its aggression and rejection of international peace resolutions and prove its negligence of the basic Arab rights and the peace initiatives.” Al-Assad indicated that strains in inter-Arab relations have affected Arab summits, but the leaders have succeeded in adopting stances that serve interests of the Arab nation.
The president re-affirmed Damascus’ desire to establish regional peace, and that it had proven its will in this respect through its participation in several peace conferences in the past.
Al-Assad expressed desire to resolve the Lebanese crisis and denied that his leadership was playing a negative role in this regard.
On the situation in Iraq president al-Assad called for a felt Arab presence in that country, underlining that no amount of regional or international support for Iraq could replace Arab support.
He also appealed for Arab backing of the Sudanese government’s efforts in dealing with the humanitarian conditions in Darfur and with bringing a semblance of peace, stability, and security to the area, away from outside interference into what he called were essentially Sudanese affairs.
Al-Assad expressed his rejection of the imposition of solutions on Darfur by foreign states under the guise of helping to address humanitarian conditions there. Moreover he said that resisting occupation of any kind was a legitimate endeavor that has been sanctioned by international charters and norms. He termed what Israel was perpetrating in the Palestinian territories as the worst kind of state-sponsored terrorism in modern times.
He urged the summiteers to opt for taking decisive steps in addressing broad Arab problems that plague the region, emphasizing that Arab states had no viable options but to consult one another and work assiduously together to find solutions for common problems.
“We live in a world that is increasingly in favor of forming regional blocs that boost their economies and rates of growth and enhance these blocs’common interests,” he said.
He underscored the imperative that all Arab states face any momentous challenges together in what brings peace and prospertity to all of them in the long run.