STARTED AMID PROTESTS, ASAD’S FRENCH VISIT ENDED WITH INDIFFERENCE
PARIS, 28 June (IPS) The first official visit to France by the Syrian President Bashar al-Asad ended in controversy and was marred by widespread protests from Jewish, Christian and leftist circles condemning his anti-Semite declarations and the situation of human rights in Syria.
But to sooth a hostile French public opinion and appease the government of Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, Mr. Asad promised to return freedom to Mr. Nizar Nayyouf, a respected Syrian dissident journalist who needs urgent medical care after spending nine years in prison.
(In a telephone interview from Damascus, Mr. Nayyouf confirmed Wednesday that he had been told by Syrian authorities that he could leave the country).
Nayyouf, 40, became one of the world's best-known prisoners of conscience during a jail term imposed for criticisng human rights abuses.
He was freed in May but the writer and his supporters have claimed he still faces police harassment.
In an open letter to Mr. Chirac coinciding with Asad's visit to France, Nayyouf alleged that between 13,000 and 17,000 political detainees had "died under torture" in Syrian jails.
Hundreds of thousands protested to the visit and criticised the conservative President Jacques Chirac for receiving someone who ought to be handed out to the International Court of Crime Against Humanity.
In an interview with French centre-right daily "Le Figaro", Mr. Asad, questioned on his anti-Semite remarks made during the visit of John Pope II to Damascus last month, said he was not translated correctly and blamed the press for having "twisted" his phrase.
"What I said was just to compare the suffering of the Palestinians under the Islaeli occupation with that of Jesus Christ", the 35 years-old Asad explained in Paris during a press conference from where some journalists had been barred by Syrian secret services.
But he did not cite the phrase he claimed was twisted.
In his toast at the official diner at the Elysee Palac, Mr. Chirac said peace in the Middle East must be based on the mutual respect of all the three monotheist religions that came from this area, a reference to Mr. Asad’s remarks that the Jews were "worse than the Nazis".
Sources close to the visit said in his talks with Mr. Asad, Mr. Jospin urged the Syrian leader to adopt a "spirit of concord, tolerance and mutual comprehension in order to re-tie the threads of the peace dialogue".
They said Jospin also "underlined France's interest in and the attention it pays to the human rights situation and public freedoms in Syria".
Some 800 opposition figures are still imprisoned in Syria, down from 10,000 a decade ago.
During his talks with Mr. Chirac and Mr. Jospin, Mr. Asad briefed them on Syria’s position towards the stalemated Middle East Peace Process and encouraged both France and the European Union to play a more active role in favour of the Arabs.
Addressing French lawmakers, Mr. Asad said Israel must recognise UN resolutions and give up all occupied territory, including the Golan Heights, as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians.
"Syira is ready for a just and global peace (with Israel) that would guarantee the return to Syria and all other parties their legitimate rights", he said, warning that the region was "moving towards a war that is in the interest of no one".
He also urged French industry, banking and financial bosses to invest in Syria and help modernising the old, sclerosed Syrian economic and administrative sectors.
"It was a good visit, but saying that we learned something out of it about the young Asad himself or his policies, I strongly doubt", said one French diplomat. ENDS ASADA PARIS 28601