Bashar in Saudi Arabia 'for talks not mediation'

Dubai: A few hours after Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al Faisal held talks with Syrian President Bashar Al Assad and his Foreign Minister Farouk Al Shar'a in Damascus yesterday, Bashar flew to Jeddah to meet the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz.

He arrived to "consult" with him on the crisis over former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri's murder, according to Saudi analysts.

With a UN probe implicating Syrian intelligence, Syria has been under mounting pressure over the killing last February. At the same time, Saudi analysts strongly believed that Assad's visit came within the framework of "consultation and talks" rather than mediation.

"I have not seen any indication, nor received any piece of information talking about (Saudi) initiative," said Tareq Al Hamid, Editor-In-Chief of the London-based Al Sharq Al Awsat.

"My conviction is that neither Saudi Arabia, nor Egypt, nor any other country can do anything, if Syria couldn't do anything to help itself," Al Hamid told Gulf News.

Assad's talks in Jeddah yesterday came almost a week after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met with Saudi King Abdullah in Saudi Arabia to discuss the current predicament in which Syria is in. Assad's talks came with the "consultation and understanding on the necessity of avoiding the region a possible [foreign] intervention," said another Saudi analyst.

Saudi-Syrian talks came one day after Syrian rejection to a UN probe committee request to quiz Assad, after former Syrian vice president Abdul Halim Khaddam. "I don't think the talks [in Jeddah] aimed to convince the Syrian leadership to carry out a certain demand," said the Riyad-based Saudi analyst, in reference to questioning Bashar.

"Cooperation with the investigation has other angles," added the source in reference questioning Shar'a and other Syrian security officials mentioned in the UN investigation committee's report. Arab diplomats said Jeddah talks focused on finding face-saving way for Bashar to deal with the request of questioning.

AP quoted diplomats as saying one proposal being put to Assad called for him to send an envoy to meet with investigators to take their questions and return them to Damascus. Assad would then provide written answers and send them back to investigators.

At the same time, Arabic-daily Al Hayat quoted diplomatic sources as saying that Shara wrote to the UN Assad was still "studying" the request.