Damascus: Lebanese MP Walid Junblatt arrived in Damascus on Wednesday for talks with President Bashar Al Assad.
Junblatt, who heads the Druze community in Lebanon, had been persona non grata in Syria since 2005, having repeatedly spoken out against Syria in public speeches, accusing it of killing Lebanon's former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. A legal case had been filed against him in Syrian courts by a group of Syrian attorneys, accusing him of insulting the people of Syria.
He even severed his relationship with Hezbollah chief Hasan Nasrallah, claiming that Hezbollah arms were weapons of treachery.
Junblatt took a U-turn aimed at mending his relations with Damascus and Hezbollah in May 2008, when forces of the March 14 Coalition were rounded up in a matter of hours by armed men from Hezbollah. He met Nasrallah shortly after parliamentary elections last summer and has since apologised numerous times to the Syrian leadership, the most recent of which was via the Doha-based Al Jazeera TV earlier this March.
In turn, Syria announced via Hezbollah, that Junblatt’s formal and public apology had been accepted, words repeated by President Al Assad in an interview with Hezbollah's TV Al Manar, earlier last week.
Junblatt, who succeeded his father Kamal as head of the Druze community after the latter was assassinated in 1977, had been a close friend of Syria during the long years of the Lebanese Civil War. In the 1990s he served as cabinet minister and MP in the pro-Syrian administration of President Elias Hrawi and was a frequent visitor to Syria during the era of President Hafez Al Assad. He is married to Nora Sharabati, the daughter of Syria's former Defence Minister Ahmad Sharabati.
When speaking to Al Manar TV last week, President Al Assad said Junblatt had returned to the right path by retracting earlier statements that described Syria as an occupying force in Lebanon. He noted, however, that Syria is not searching for an apology; "we don't suffer from a strength or superiority complex. We don't need to prove ourselves to anybody," he added.
"When one person tells another; I apologise what does that mean? It means that he wronged him [and is sorry]. This is the content of what Junblatt said in more than one interview."
During his Syria visit he was accompanied by his right-hand man from the Social Progressive Party, ex-Information Minister Gazi Al Aridi.
