(Zaman Al Wasl)- A high-ranking Syrian official told fellow Lebanese officials that the regime sees Syria's real population as 12 million people, ignoring 12 more million live abroad on the borders and neighborhood countries, a Lebanese daily said Monday.
The official supposedly continued saying the regime does not acknowledge the possibility of the refugees abroad returning, according to an article published in the An-Nahar.
Ahmad Ayyash, the journalist who authored the article, was reporting on a preparatory meeting for an international conference devoted to the Syrian asylum issue. He pointed out the rampant divisions among Lebanese politicians regarding this issue which is considered a top priority in Lebanon.
The foreign ministers of around 70 different countries are expected to attend the conference, and the Lebanese government aspires to receive soft loans (as grants) estimated at 10 billion US Dollars.
After presenting the conflicting positions within the Lebanese government on the issue of displaced Syrians, Ayyash indicated that the Lebanese Prime Minister asked his Minister of Interior to register the number of Syrian births in Lebanon that happened after the migration according to legal protocol. The study showed that 120,000 Syrian nationals were born in Lebanon.
Ayyash commented that the Lebanese Prime Minister’s initiative aims to “confirm the Syrian nationality of these refugees to preserve Lebanon's right and their right of return to Syria when the conditions for a safe return are in place.”
He continued that, “A prominent political source reveals that a senior Syrian official told a Lebanese visitor not long ago that the regime is dealing with the issue of the displaced on the basis the population of Syria is 12 million people. And what is discussed about the return of millions of displaced people is not part of the regime dictionary. "
The comment he includes harks back to another circulated at the beginning of the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in 2011, when a "senior official" was also quoted as saying that the Assad family have no objection reducing Syria’s population to the 7 million it was at the time Hafez al-Assad took power. At the time, the comment hinted to the regime’s plan to dispose of 17 million people by killing or displacing them.
In the event the comment reported in the An-Nahar article proves true, then Syrians will suffer the fate of Palestinians, stripped of the right to return to their homes and properties.
The peaceful demonstrations that ended up with deadly war carried out by the Syrian regime and key regional players has killed at least 465,000 people, including 150,000 children and has displaced over 12 million people.
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