May 30 2013
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Dubai
Gulf Arab states will consider declaring Lebanon’s party Hizbullah, which is openly involved in the Syrian conflict, a terrorist organisation, A Kuwaiti daily quoted highly placed diplomats as saying.
Bahrain, which hosts the GCC’s rotating presidency, will ask foreign ministers of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to discuss “placing Hizbullah on the terror list” at a meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Sunday, Al Rai said.
The paper did not say whether any action would apply to Hizbullah as a whole or just its militia, whose men are fighting alongside Syrian regime troops in a fierce battle to retake the border town of Qusayr from rebels.
The move to designate Hezbollah a terror entity comes amid accusations, mainly by Bahrain, that it has been engaged in activities undermining stability and security in the region.
As a further repercussion of Hezbollah’s involvement in Qusayr, Syria’s opposition National Coaltion said it will not take part in proposed US-Russia peace talks while the Lebanese group and Iran continue fighting alongside Syrian regime forces.
“The National Coalition will not take part in any international conference or any such efforts so long as the militias of Iran and Hezbollah continue their invasion of Syria,” acting chief George Sabra said in Istanbul.
“Today, Syrians’ lives are more important than any political solution or any international conference,” Sabra added.
It has taken the divided opposition meeting in Istanbul a week to find common ground on the so-called Geneva 2 peace conference proposed by Moscow and Washington in hopes of ending the civil war.
Meanwhile, President Bashar Al Assad has said in a television interview that Russia has delivered S-300 air defense missiles to his country.
“Syria has received the first shipment of Russian anti-aircraft S-300 rockets,” Al Assad said in the interview. “The rest of the shipment will arrive later today.”
An Israeli minister responded by saying the missiles were not a problem unless they fell in the ‘wrong’ hands.
Rebels fighting the regime in Qusayr pleaded for military and medical aid, saying they were unable to evacuate hundreds of wounded under a regime and Hezbollah onslaught.
“We have 700 people wounded in Qusair and 100 of them are being given oxygen. The town is surrounded and there’s no way to bring in medical aid,” said Malek Ammar, an opposition activist in the besieged town.
Gulf News Report
Gulf News 2013. All rights reserved.
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