No official invitations for the Pope's visit to Syria

The Monte Carlo radio correspondent in Beirut said on Saturday that the visit of Pope John Paul II to Syria will not be attended by any Lebanese official delegations because the state of Lebanon did not receive the invitation to take part, as the government of Syria did not play any role in extending invitation, rather the local Syrian church authorities did so.

The correspondent said that the Lebanese will follow up the events of the Pope's visit via the Lebanese TVs which were equipped with a work team for live transmission for all events of the visit.

The correspondent added that the abstention of the Maronite Patriarch Nasrullah Sfeir from visiting Damascus made the Lebanese not very careful for the visit of the Pope.

The correspondent quoted several Lebanese politicians as saying that they would have participated in this visit in huge people delegation if Sfeir would have visited Damascus.

The correspondent continued that all this fall in the course of the already intensified relations between Syria and the Lebanese Christians especially Bkerky following the series of the recent stances made by Sfeir, either when he did not visit Damascus and in his patronage of " Qarnet Shehwan meeting," during which the participants criticized the Syrian presence in Lebanon asked for re-scheduling Syria's definite withdrawal from Lebanon.