Asma Akhras Al-Assad
This webpage is a little dated, but, portrays a very different understanding of a country engaged in making a civil footprint for it's people. If peace is the agenda, truly the agenda, all countries will have to come to terms with their history of aggression against each other, including the continued disparity with Lebanon of a palpable peace.
...Mrs. Assad is committed to highlighting the key role of women in the development process and to facilitating their participation. She recently hosted the “Women and Education” forum which gathered First Ladies from six various Arab countries and delegations from all 22 Arab countries. The three-day event gathered viewpoints and opinions on new trends and methodologies in education. She actively supports the Syrian Business Women’s Committee in the Chamber of Commerce. In April 2002, she hosted the Women in Business Conference, the largest gathering of businesswomen in the Middle East....
Report: Syrian envoy to visit Iran, explain attendance at Annapolis (click here)
By DPA
Syria will dispatch its deputy foreign minister to Iran on Sunday, in an attempt to explain its participation in last week's U.S.-sponsored Middle East peace conference, the Iranian news network Khabar reported.
Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faysal Mekdad, who was also Syria's envoy to the Annapolis, Maryland summit, is expected to deliver a special message from Syrian President Bashar Assad to his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the report said.
Ahmadinejad and his government were angry with several Arab states, including Saudi Arabia and Syria, for having ignored Tehran's call to boycott the Annapolis conference, which the Iranian president had branded as a "venue of another Zionist plot against Palestine."
Tehran denounced the conference as "unimportant and just US propaganda for Zionists" and called its joint declaration a "piece of useless torn paper."
Syria, which agreed to attend the conference only after receiving assurances that the issue of the Golan Heights was added to the agenda, left Annapolis without a specific promise to restart stalled talks with Israel....
By Agence France Presse (AFP)
Monday, December 03, 2007
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the United States will not sell out Lebanon to Syria. In an interview with Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot, Olmert also revealed that he was the one who insisted on Syria's invitation to the Annapolis peace conference, despite Washington's objection.
Olmert stressed that the US was not willing to deceive Lebanon in return for normalization of relations with Syria.
"We are aware that the Syrians will not get involved in peace talks unless the Americans changed their stance toward them," Olmert told the daily.
"And for establishing normal ties with Syria, the Americans will have to betray Lebanon, and George Bush's administration is not willing to do so," he said....
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the United States will not sell out Lebanon to Syria. In an interview with Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot, Olmert also revealed that he was the one who insisted on Syria's invitation to the Annapolis peace conference, despite Washington's objection.
Olmert stressed that the US was not willing to deceive Lebanon in return for normalization of relations with Syria.
"We are aware that the Syrians will not get involved in peace talks unless the Americans changed their stance toward them," Olmert told the daily.
"And for establishing normal ties with Syria, the Americans will have to betray Lebanon, and George Bush's administration is not willing to do so," he said....
