Okaz: Information minister stresses Syria's cling to peace, interview

Information Minister, Ahmad al-Hassan reiterated Syria's adherence to the just and comprehensive peace that is based on the international resolutions.

"Since Madrid conference in the year 1991, Syria has been proving to the world that peace for her is a necessary aim and a political and moral stance," Al-Hassan said in an interview with Saudi paper Okaz published Friday.

He stressed that the Golan Heights is the part of Syria which is occupied by force and there would be no peace without the restoration of this occupied part.

"We believe in peace and want to restore our occupied land because peace is based on the restoration of right and possession of the national will," Al-Hassan added.

Al-Hassan pointed out to attempts of "Israel and Zionist circles to affect and to raise doubts regarding Syria's firm stance towards peace."

He touched upon Israel's decisions and behaviors manifested in decisions of annexing the Golan, building settlements, substituting the Syrian identity and destroying cities and villages of the Golan asserting that Israel's stance represents the fact of the aggressive inclination and domination desire that Israel possesses.

Al-Hassan stressed that, in Syria, we are practicing a clear and balanced informational role to prove our stances in a methodical way and seeking for addressing the western policy through the logic of firm principles and objectivity of ideas.

Regarding the main problem in conveying the Arab stance to the West, the Minister said "The main problem is represented in two directions, the subjective direction where the Arab informational address is still weak and the direction of domination of types of the Western and Zionist policy thought on major of the western media."