(22 Dec 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Damascus, Syria – 22 December 2024
1. Exterior of Syrian presidential palace in Damascus
2. Various of Lebanese politcian Walid Jumblatt leading a delegation from the Druze community entering, being received by interim Syrian prime minister Mohamamd Al-Bashir (delegation includes Lebanese MPs, ministers, and the highest- ranking Druze religious authority in Lebanon, Sheikh Al Aql)
3. Various of meeting
4. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Ahmed Al-Sharaa, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham leader:
“Our priorities are security, public services in the long term, the establishment of the army, and controlling unregulated weapons under the authority of the state. We will not allow any plans for the partition of Syria. We also seek international pressure to address the recent Israeli advancements in Syria, while maintaining our commitment to the 1974 agreement regarding the buffer zone and preparing to deploy international forces to protect the area. Any pretext that could be used by any party to advance on Syria and occupy its territories must be prevented.”
5. Druze Sheikhs in meeting
6. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Ahmed Al-Sharaa, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham leader:
“I say that, God willing, there is a new chapter ahead of everyone, of all the components of the Lebanese society, regardless of past positions. This chapter is based on ensuring that Syrian territory is not used to launch conflicts and wars, stir sectarian tensions, or consider Lebanon’s strategic security in a way that it negatively influences the Syrian situation.”
7. Al-Sharaa bidding farewell to Jumblatt
8. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Walid Jumblatt, Lebanese politician and Druze community leader:
“There will be great hope in establishing strong relations between the two states. This is all we aspire to. The past is gone. As Sheikh Abu Mohammed (meaning Ahmad al-Sharaa) said, the past is over, we forget the past. We have opened a new chapter for the two peoples and the two states.
9. Jumblatt walking with others
10. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Walid Jumblatt, Lebanese politician and Druze community leader:
“The Shebaa Farms fall under Resolution 242. If a demarcation is made between the Lebanese and Syrian states confirming that the Shebaa Farms are Lebanese, we will accept it. However, the Shebaa Farms are Syrian.”
11. Jumblatt and delegation taking a commemorative photo at the steps of the palace
12. Militants at the entrance of the presidency palace
13. Road leading to the presidential palace with the new Syrian flag of the revolution hung on poles on its sides
STORYLINE:
A prominent Lebanese politician held talks on Sunday with the insurgent who led the overthrow of Syria’s President Bashar Assad, with both expressing hope for a new era in relations.
Druze leader Walid Jumblatt is the most important politician from Lebanon to visit Syria since the Assad family’s 54-year rule ended two weeks ago. Jumblatt was a long time critic of Syria’s involvement in Lebanon and blamed Assad’s father, former leader Hafez Assad, for the assassination of his own father.
Ahmad al-Sharaa led the Sunni Islamist rebels who swept into Damascus this month. Now wearing a suit and tie, he has been meeting diplomats and others as Assad’s fall reshapes alliances and gives many long-stifled Syrians hope after more than 13 years of civil war and international sanctions.
Jumblatt, a key figure in Lebanon’s Druze minority, expressed hope that Lebanese-Syrian relations “will return to normal.” His father, Kamal, was killed in 1977 in an ambush near a Syrian roadblock during Syria’s military intervention in Lebanon’s civil war.
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