Sfeir and Syria

The Lebanese daily al-Nahar said in its Monday's issue that several persons close to Bkerky who several days ago met with the Syrian vice- President Abdul Halim Khaddam quoted him ( Khaddam) as expressing Syria's appreciation to the Maronite Patriarch Nasrullah Sfeir because of his stances towards refusing to involve the name of Islam in the explosions took place in New York and Washington and classifying Muslims as terrorists and his position ( Sfeir) towards the Hizbullah party especially that the situation requires co-operation among world states to withstand dangers besieging the world as a whole.

The visitors to Bkerky said that the recent stances of the Patriarch are " normal" because Bkerky is an Arab nationalist reference and that the Christian presence in the East constitutes an element of coexistence with all divine religions and that Damascus is a guarantee for this existence amid the current developments in the world.