Meet with Assad adviser hit

MANILA, Philippines - President Aquino may have made a wrong move when he met recently with a senior official of Syrian president Bashar Assad at Malacañang, purportedly to hear about the beleaguered Syrian leader’s plea for help in ending the bloody civil war in the Middle East country, senior Philippine diplomats said yesterday.

They said the international community was generally unaware of the low-profile but high-level Manila visit of Assad’s trusted political and media adviser Bouthaina Shaaban.

The European Union and the United States have imposed sanctions on Assad’s regime to pressure it into ending its violent crackdown on rebel fighters.

A ranking official of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) escorted Shaaban on her arrival in Manila, sources said.

“If we are a responsible member of the international community we will not do that (high-level welcome),” another diplomat said.

“She is the most influential in the circle of President Assad. One aspect is the US and EU sanctions and it might be interpreted as defying the EU and the US. We can look at it that way,” one diplomat said.

The diplomat said that while the Philippines has its own policy, it is expected to recognize the sanctions on Syria and its officials imposed by the EU and the US.

Shaaban supposedly delivered a letter from Assad to President Aquino and discussed a proposal for a political solution to the two-year-old Syrian conflict.

The US embassy, through press attaché Bettina Malone, declined to comment on the issue.

In 2011, the US Treasury Department ordered a freeze on the assets of Shaaban, Syrian foreign minister Walid Moallem, and ambassador to Lebanon Ali Abdel-Karim Ali, in response to Syria’s increasingly violent crackdown on its citizens deemed hostile to the regime.

Last year, the EU toughened its restrictions to include a Syrian bank and an oil company.

The STAR reported on Thursday that Assad was asking the Philippines for help in finding a “political solution” to the Syrian conflict. The DFA confirmed the report but denied that Assad was seeking political asylum or financial help.

DFA spokesman Raul Hernandez said that Syria merely informed the Philippines of its proposal for a political solution to the Syrian crisis.

Hernandez declined to comment on Assad supposedly eyeing the Philippines as intermediary with the US, the EU and the Arab League.

Malacañang said on Thursday that it had made no commitment to help Syria and that its focus was on ensuring the welfare of Filipinos in the strife-torn country.