02/11/2009 Syrian President Bashar Assad said that the Unites States cannot be blamed for the deadlock in the Mideast talks. “The current Israeli government does not want peace. There is no partner for peace in Israel. The (U.S.) broker can therefore not do anything or be blamed if the Israeli side does not want peace," he told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting with journalists who accompanied him to Croatia. Assad stressed Syria’s demand to get back its occupied territories was not a precondition but a rightful demand.
The Syrian president also told reporters that Damascus wants to improve Arab-Arab ties adding that what has happened so far with regards to US-Syrian ties was change of approach and replacement of dictations with dialogue.
 
Assad said that the Arab situation has improved. “What’s important is to move forward...Arabs have learned that when Arab-Arab relations are bad, everybody pays the price.”
 
The Syrian President reiterated that the formation of the Cabinet in Lebanon is the "responsibility of the Lebanese" and stressed no regional country would form the government.
Neither Syria nor Saudi Arabia nor the summit that brought the two countries' leaders together last month "would form the national unity cabinet in Lebanon," Assad told As Safir newspaper.