VZCZCXYZ0000
OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHDM #4162/01 2351436
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 231436Z AUG 06
FM AMEMBASSY DAMASCUS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 1176
RHEHAAA/WHITE HOUSE WASHDC IMMEDIATE
RUEHAM/AMEMBASSY AMMAN 6219
RUEHLB/AMEMBASSY BEIRUT 4055
RUEHEG/AMEMBASSY CAIRO 2613
RHMFISS/HQ USCENTCOM MACDILL AFB FL//CCPA//
INFO RUEHNC/AMEMBASSY NICOSIA 6980

UNCLAS DAMASCUS 004162 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR PA, NEA/ARN, INR/IC/CD, INR/S:STHIBEAULT AND 
JMCCARTER, VOA NEWS CA, NEA/PPD:CBOURGEOIS, DBENZE AND 
AFERNANDEZ, IIP/G/NEA-SA RWINCHESTER 
WHITE HOUSE FOR NSC 
CENTCOM FOR CCPA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KMDR PREL KPAO OPRC SY
SUBJECT: Damascus Media Reaction:  Syria/Turkey, Syria/Spain, 
Syria/Brazil, Lebanon, Palestinian Territories (8/23) 
 
¶1.  Summary: Syrian papers today reported the visit to Damascus 
of Turkish Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Abdullah 
Gul and his meeting with President Asad, that focused on 
bilateral relations, developments in Iraq and the Palestinian 
territories, the Israeli aggression against Lebanon and its 
repercussions in the region, and the role that Turkey might play 
in the enhanced United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon [UNIFIL] 
and in the achievement of peace in the region.  Gul also met 
with Vice President Shara, who underscored the important role 
that Turkey can play in current issues and in the available 
opportunities for peace in the region, and with Foreign Minister 
Mouallem, with whom he discussed the situation in Lebanon 
following the adoption of UNSC Resolution 1701, the need to 
maintain the cease-fire and to achieve an Israeli withdrawal to 
beyond the Blue Line, and the role of UNIFIL.  FM Gul made a 
press statement in which he described his talks with Syrian 
officials as "fruitful, useful, and very positive."  On the 
possibility of his country's participation in the international 
force that will be sent to Lebanon to reinforce UNIFIL, Gul said 
Turkey has not yet made a decision.  If Turkey decides to 
participate, he said, Syria will welcome the decision. 
 
Papers also featured an interview, published by French newspaper 
Sud West, with Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos, 
in which he stressed the need to involve Syria in international 
efforts to heal the situation in the Middle East.  "There is no 
military solution for this issue," Moratinos said.  The Spanish 
minister confirmed that Europe cannot stand with its hands folded 
regarding the fighting 'taking place at its doors' and said that 
his country will participate in the UNIFIL forces in Lebanon, 
without specifying the nature or size of such participation. 
 
Papers also reported that Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al- 
Meqdad discussed the situation in the region, recent 
developments in the occupied Palestinian territories, and 
repercussions of the Israeli aggression on Lebanon with Afonso 
Celso de Ouro Preto, the Brazilian special envoy to the Middle 
East.  During the meeting, the Brazilian envoy underlined his 
country's interest in Syria's views regarding current events in 
the Middle East, stressing the deep-rooted ties that connect 
Syria and Brazil. 
 
Papers also reported a message of solidarity to the Palestinian 
people from Mahmoud al-Abrash, Speaker of the People's Assembly, 
characterizing as an obvious violation of international law and 
conventions the arrest of Aziz al-Doik, Chairman of the 
Palestinian Legislative Council, and other Palestinian 
ministers, parliamentarians and citizens.  Al-Abrash underlined 
Syria's firm support for the Palestinian people's struggle to 
restore their usurped rights.  Al-Abrash noted that the 
Palestinians' struggle to liberate their land and establish a 
sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital is a 
legitimate right recognized by all international resolutions. 
"The great victory realized by the Lebanese Resistance became a 
good lesson on how to restore all occupied Arab lands," he 
added. 
 
End of summary. 
 
¶2.  Selected Headlines: 
 
"President Asad reviews with Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah 
Gul repercussions of the Israeli aggression against Lebanon, 
latest developments in the region and means to enhance bilateral 
relations.  Vice President Shara and Foreign Minister Mouallem 
confer with Gul.  Viewpoints were identical on the issues" 
(Government-owned Tishreen, 8/23) 
 
"Speaker of the Syrian People's Assembly sends a message of 
solidarity to the Palestinian people on the Day of Solidarity 
with Palestinian Detainees:  Resistance is a legal right as long 
as there is occupation" (Government-owned Tishreen, 8/23) 
 
"Moratinos:  It is important to include Syria in international 
efforts that aim to heal the situation in the Middle East" 
(Government-owned Tishreen, 8/23) 
 
 
"Foreign Minister Bilal receives the Brazilian envoy to the 
region and Khaled Haddadah Secretary General of the Lebanese 
Communist Party:  Syria will support Lebanon.... Coherence among 
Lebanese factions enhances the Resistance's victory" (Government- 
owned Tishreen, 8/23) 
 
"Defeat intensifies pressure on the Israeli aggression 
tripartite:  Olmert, Beratz and Halouts.  Italy, which is 
nominated to lead the international forces in Lebanon, hints at 
not sending any forces to Lebanon if Israel keeps violating the 
cease-fire" (Government-owned Tishreen, 8/23) 
 
"Lebanese President warns against an ambiguous truce and 
continuous Israeli violations of the cease-fire" (Government- 
owned Al-Thawra, 8/23) 
 
"Hanieh advises renunciation of Palestinian domestic differences. 
Israeli occupation kills three Palestinian activists, disfiguring 
their bodies, and charges al-Doik with terrorism" (Government- 
owned Tishreen, 8/23) 
¶3.  Editorial Block Quotes: 
----------------- 
 
"Launching Peace" 
 
----------------- 
 
Abd-al-Fattah al-Awad, Chief Editor of government-owned Al- 
Thawra, commented (8/23):  "Arabs launch peace while Israel 
always launches war.  Perhaps the death of the peace process, as 
the Arab foreign ministers have recently been announcing, poses 
a question about the relationship between resistance and peace. 
 
"Syria does not believe in 'resistance for the sake of 
resistance.'  The realistic and practical principle is 
'resistance for the sake of peace.'  Among other achievements, 
resistance improves the climate for the creation of a just 
peace.  The advocates and supporters of peace, therefore, should 
always support the concept of resistance.... 
 
"Offering peace initiatives and raising peace slogans without 
engaging in resistance made Israel arrogant and intransigent. 
Israel did not take those Arab peace initiatives seriously. 
Every time the Arabs took a step toward peace, the Israelis took 
steps toward war. 
 
"Many examples prove this, and the violations of Resolution 1701 
will not be the last.  There is much evidence that many were 
victimized by excessive optimism about Israel's inclinations, 
which are supported by the US.... 
 
"While Syria is now listening to various views about the next 
scenarios, it realizes quite well that the possibility of 
achieving peace depends on Israel's readiness to restore Arab 
rights.  This simply means that the peace process is possible on 
the basis of the Security Council resolutions.... 
 
"Israel showed that it is not willing to achieve peace.  Its 
governments do not believe in the need to return the occupied 
territories to their owners.... Syria has always believed in 
peace. It was Israel that aborted every attempt to make a 
breakthrough.... 
 
"The international community is to blame for neglecting the 
peace process.  Instead of talking about incomplete efforts in 
this respect, the time has come for the world to work seriously 
to achieve a genuine and comprehensive peace that returns rights 
to their owners. 
 
"At any rate, the victory of the Lebanese resistance and the 
success of the resistance in Palestine and Iraq will generalize 
the resistance approach.  The lessons of the past have proven 
that the exclusion of the resistance option harmed peace.  The 
current lesson says:  The victory of the principle of resistance 
is the way towards peace...." 
 
 
------------------------- 
 
"A Strange Contradiction" 
 
------------------------- 
 
Omar Jaftali, an editorialist in government-owned Tishreen, 
wrote (8/23):  "All indications show that Israel is playing on 
the time factor and on Resolution 1701 to make gains that it 
failed to achieve during its terrorist aggression against 
Lebanon because of the valor of the Resistance and the 
steadfastness of the majority of the Lebanese.... 
 
"Israel continues its violations of Resolution 1701 through its 
extensive flights in Lebanese skies and infiltrations into 
Lebanese areas in the south.... The United Nations is not 
condemning these violations because they are committed in 
collusion with the United States, which drafted the Security 
Council resolution in an ambiguous way so as to be a source of 
problems, not solutions. 
 
"The strange contradiction is that the dispute among some 
Lebanese groups has become part of the US-Israeli distribution 
of political roles for the post-aggression stage.  Some are 
frightening the Lebanese people away from the Resistance and 
inciting them against Hizbollah, ignoring Israeli massacres and 
Lebanese bloodshed.... 
 
"Those who are in a hurry to create sedition and fabricate 
problems with the Resistance intend to serve Israel and give it 
what it has failed to achieve through its sinful aggression.... 
The worst that can happen in Lebanon -- and that is what the 
Israeli enemy seeks to achieve -- is to create a split over the 
national Resistance, which has secured victory for all the 
Lebanese." 
 
------------------------------------ 
 
"Violating the Text of the US Drama" 
 
------------------------------------ 
 
Isam Dari, an editorialist in government-owned Tishreen, wrote 
(8/23):  "What the March 14 group did in Lebanon before, during, 
and after the Israeli aggression against Lebanon stemmed not 
from political recklessness but from the role it was assigned to 
play in an Israeli-American drama.... 
 
"The Lebanese Resistance managed to foil the new Middle East 
plan and to remove the mask from the yellow faces in Quraytim, 
Al-Mukhtarah, and Al-Arz [headquarters of Saad Al-Hariri, Walid 
Junblatt, and Samir Ja'ja, respectively].  The owners of those 
faces, which became more yellow with the victory of the 
Resistance, found nothing to do other than attack the master of 
the Resistance [Hasan Nasrallah], Syria, and Arabism.  They 
began to speak on behalf of Israel and demand accountability and 
the 'immediate' dismantling of Hizbollah's weapons. 
 
"Do they recall that the departure of the Palestinian weapon 
after the Israeli incursion into Lebanon in 1982 resulted in the 
Sabra and Shatila massacre?  Do they want to see another Sabra 
and Shatila?  When they ask the Resistance to lay down its arms, 
who will protect the Resistance, and who will protect Lebanon? 
 
"The irony is that this is the first time in history that the 
winner is asked to lay down its arms by the Lebanese forces that 
should have defended those who defended them and protected 
Lebanon.  But the role of this group is to liquidate the 
Resistance and throw Lebanon into the lap of a new May 17 
agreement." 
 
------------------------ 
 
"Post-Victory Surprises" 
 
------------------------ 
 
Ali Qasim, a columnist in government-owned Al-Thawra, wrote 
(8/23):  "The Lebanese Resistance was not content with the major 
surprises it achieved in confronting the Israeli aggression and 
with scoring a broad victory;  it continued its series of 
surprises even after the victory, when it began work to 
reconstruct the south.... 
 
"The Resistance, through its performance, adds a political 
credibility to its military and media credibility.... Thus, the 
Resistance offers a model for political action at a time when 
Israel is offering a model for political contradiction 
reflecting clear panic...." 
 
Corbin