Khartoum: Bashar Al Assad was walking on friendly grounds as he took his seat at the Arab summit yesterday.
Under international pressure after the spotlight fell on Damascus following the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Al Hariri more than a year ago, the President of Syria was looking for Arab support to get out of US-imposed political isolation.
Analysts, however, say Bashar was disappointed because half of the Arab leaders including heavyweights Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia failed to show up for the Khartoum meeting.
Despite the fact that Bashar has won resounding support from the Arab conference which denounced "the threat of unilateral sanctions" against Damascus in reference to American moves to censure the Syrian regime, including financial sanctions imposed recently on a number of Syrian officials Syria was looking for more, said leading Syrian analysts and human rights activist Anwar Bunni.
Bashar would have liked to be in the company of Mubarak and Saudi King, both close US allies, he told Gulf News over the phone from Damascus. "It would have sent a strong message of Arab solidarity [with Syria] and support," he said.
The Syrian president met on Monday night his ally, Lebanese embattled president Emile Lahoud. But there were no plans for him to meet Lebanese anti-Syrian Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, said a Lebanese delegate to the summit.
Syrian-Lebanese relations have soured since the killing of Hariri, blamed by many Lebanese on Damascus.
"His [Bashar] meeting with Lahoud is insignificant. It will not affect the attitude of the Lebanese nor the United Nations," said Bunni.
"The people who would have helped straighten out his relations with Lebanon and the UN, and perhaps the US are not there," he said, referring to King Abdullah and Mubarak.
Syria is also under pressure from the United Nations' Security Council to cooperate with its probe in to the February 14, 2005, blast that killed Hariri and 22 others in central Beirut.
The probe committee, headed by Belgian prosecutor Serge Bramertz, said in its report earlier this month that Syria was cooperating to a certain degree but he asked to interview senior officials, including Bashar.
But Bramertz's predecessor German investigator Detlev Mehlis implicated a number of Syrian security officers, including few close to the Syrian president, in the Hariri murder.
Without the Lebanese willingness to appease their former powerbroker and the absence of influential leaders who would force the Beirut government to change its attitude, it is doubtful whether the Khartoum summit would mean anything for Bashar.
