Report: Assad offered incentives to reexamine ties with Iran

Syria received offer for series of financial incentives from US, European Union in exchange for agreeing to reexamine its ties with Iran, Hizbullah and other terror groups, Qatari newspaper reports
Roee Nahmias

Syria has received an offer for a series of financial incentives from the US and the European Union in exchange for agreeing to reexamine its ties with Iran, Hizbullah and other terror groups, Qatar's Al-Watan newspaper reported Sunday.

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The deal reportedly did not include an offer by the EU not to pursue an international tribunal in the case of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri's assassination.

However, Al-Watan quoted Syrian diplomatic source as saying that Damascus made it clear to mediators that "the national issues and the resistance in the face of the American-Zionist plans in the region are not for sale."

Diplomatic sources added that Syrian President Bashar Assad was invited by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to attend the July 14 Independence Day celebrations in Paris as part of France efforts to renew its relations with Damascus.

Syrian officials told the Qatari newspaper that France's efforts were a clear indication of what they described as the failure of the American plan to isolate Damascus.