DAMASCUS: Syrian Foreign Minister Walidal-Moualem said resuming peace talks with Israel would be useless without a commitment by the Jewish state to withdraw from the Golan Heights. Responding cautiously to an Israeli offer to open the talks without preconditions, Moualem reiterated Syrian calls for an Israeli commitment to restore the Golan and described it as "not a precondition but a requirement for peace". "If Israel does not honour these requirements then there is no point of conducting useless negotiations," Moualem said. "Negotiations will be futile if there is no true Israeli will to make peace and no U.S. involvement. We will not go back to wasting time," he told Syrian state television.
BEIRUT: Thousands of people converged Saturday on central Beirut to mark the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Lebanese former premier Rafiq Hariri.Waving Lebanese flags and carrying pictures of the slain leader, men, women and children gathered under sunny skies in Martyr's Square where members of the parliamentary majority were to address the crowd. The rally comes as final preparations are underway in The Hague for the launch of the international tribunal set up to bring Hariri's killers to justice. It also comes as the country prepares for legislative elections in June that will pit Western-backed political parties against a Hezbollah-led alliance backed by Syria and Iran.Hariri died in a massive car bombing on February 14, 2005 that also killed 22 others. The assassination was widely blamed on then Lebanese power-broker Syria, which has denied any involvement. The attack on the Beirut seafront was one of the worst acts of political violence to rock Lebanon since t...
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