Jumblatt says Assad regime finished

Lebanese Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt kept up his fierce campaign against Syria’s embattled President Bashar al-Assad, saying Sunday that his regime is doomed, adding that placing the flag of the Syrian revolution on the grave of his father Kamal Jumblatt,  left him with a good conscience. During an interview with Al-Arabiya channel, Jumblatt said “This regime is finished. I want to send a message to the friends of this regime – to Russia, which is supporting this regime with equipment, arms and a veto at the United Nations.” “It’s high time for Russia to consider that the Syrian people want freedom and dignity and to stop supplying this regime with the tools of repression, killing and tyranny. It’s high time for Russia to emerge from its isolation and join the will of the Syrian and Arab people” he added. Regarding placing the flag of the Syrian revolution on his father’s grave, Jumblatt said “When I placed the flag of the Syrian revolution on the grave of Kamal Jumblatt who was assassinated by the Syrian regime and that minority which is controlling Syria’s fate, I think this has comforted my conscience. Now, I have escaped the prison in which the Syrian regime or the Assad minority has put us for decades.” On Friday, Jumblatt marked the 35th anniversary of the assassination of his father Kamal by placing a pre-Baath flag of Syria on the grave of his father, the founder of the PSP. To underline his support for the anti-Assad revolt, Jumblatt said during a memorial ceremony on the occasion at his residence in Mukhtara in the Chouf mountains: “Long live free Syria.” Jumblatt, who has repeatedly accused Syria of assassinating his father, has expressed his support for Syria’s uprising, blasting Assad’s brutal crackdown on protesters and calling on him to step down. Jumblatt scoffed at the theory that the Assad regime played the role of protecting minorities in Syria. “I don’t accept the ‘theory’ of minorities. Even in Syria, there are majorities that did not join the uprising for objective circumstances, circumstances of fear which we must take into account,” he said. Jumblatt accused the Assad regime of using the issue of minorities in Syria to cling to power. “Since the first moment [of the uprising], the slogan that was launched from Deraa and engulfed all Syria was that the Syrian people are united.  It is not a case of minorities. The theory of minorities has fallen,” he said. “The Syrian regime has tried to use the excuse of protecting minorities, but the Syrian people are united in confronting tyranny and domination.”