"Everyone wants to talk with Bashar el Assad..."

Interview with Italy's Foreign Minister Frattini, in ISRIA, here

"...Everyone wants to talk with Bashar el Assad. “Mrs. Clinton and Senator Kerry told me that when we met”, Frattini confirmed. After France legitimised the Syrian Rais during last year’s July 14th festivities, efforts to open up to Damascus have multiplied. Barak Obama’s arrival in the White House has strengthened that strategy, extending it to include Iran, becoming a key interlocutor in the solution to the Afghan question; so much so that the State Department has expressed its desire to participate “completely” in all negotiations on Teheran’s nuclear programme (Iran’s perennial coldness is cause for concern, as witnessed yesterday with the inauguration of its first plant for the production of nuclear fuel in Isfahan). Does Syria deserve so much legitimacy? Frattini is cautious, but optimistic. “There are three elements that give us cause for hope”, he explains, “Assad’s willingness to dialogue with Israel; his pressure on the Arab League to avoid ruptures with Israel; and the beginning of normalisation with Lebanon”. Words, yes, statements, but “before this there weren’t even those”. The most visible signs regard Lebanon: the announcement of a Syrian diplomatic mission in Beirut, “even though there is no ambassador yet”, the minister specifies, and Assad’s “new pragmatism”. And yet the Lebanese are worried: Hezbollah has veto rights in the government and its power is increasingly solid —especially its military power. “Syria has to do more”, Frattini admits, “It has clarify its borders with Lebanon and control weapons trafficking southward to the Israeli border”, where our troops are engaged on the UNIFIL mission...."