BEIRUT, Lebanon, October 11 (Lebanonwire) -- In response to an article published Sunday by Syrian Magazine Al-Iktisadiah, Progressive Socialist Party Leader (PSP) Walid Jumblat said Monday in a statement that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government was acting in a "childlike" manner in dealing with current local and international pressures.

The Magazine accused Jumblat of spreading lies about alleged Syrian involvement with the murder of former Premier Rafik Hariri, adding he was a mercenary who is seeking political asylum in France to escape prosecution and avoid jail time for misleading UN investigators in the probe headed by Detlev Mehlis.

“The days of (former state prosecutor) Adnan Addoum are long gone. We live now in a new Lebanese order where those who are guilty will face punishment and if that means that Syria had a hand in the murder, it will also be punished,” Jumblat said, adding “I am not leaving anywhere, and anyone is welcome to visit me here in Mukhtara.”

Jumblat said that the four-year-old Syrian regime is acting like a juvenile compared to late president Hafez Assad’s government, which he said was level headed and mature in dealing with crisis.

“The opposition has always stressed that Syria’s stability is paramount to Lebanon and vice versa, yet the current government has prevented Palestinians from opening an embassy in Lebanon to weaken the Palestinian-Lebanese dialogue and maintain volatility,” Jumblat said.

Jumblat added that "Syria is coming with the ridiculous notion that I’m a mercenary while I fought the May 17th agreement."

Following the operation Peace for Galilee (the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon), the May 17, 1983 agreement made with US mediation stipulated ending the state of war between Israel and Lebanon, but was later rejected by several warring parties.

In a related development, Future Movement leader Saad Hariri, who was also the subject of a similar attack by Al-Iktisadiah, paid a sudden visit to Rome Monday evening where he met with Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir to discuss recent developments.

Hariri will return to Paris following the encounter, the third of its kind with Sfeir in the last 6 months.

Pro-Syrian former minister Suleiman Franjieh said following a meeting with Hezbollah’s Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah that “the Mehlis report had better have concrete evidence about anyone’s involvement in the Hariri murder probe or else we will have something to say about that.”

“The previous UN report by Deputy Irish police commissioner Peter Fitzgerald’s was all based on assumptions and we can’t accept that now. So far no one has given us an answer to the issue of Zoheir Siddiq, the so called Syrian informer, and whether he fabricated the evidence that landed four security officers in jail," Franjieh said.

Speaker Nabih Berri, also a Syrian ally, denounced today what he called attempts at isolating Syria and Lebanon.

“What people fail to realize is that Arabs will defend any attack against these countries’ national and Arab identity,” Berri announced from Qatar, where he is negotiating on behalf of Lebanon a natural gas agreement to convert the resource into electric power.

Meanwhile, Abu Rishdi, a spokesperson for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command said that the group will not surrender its arms “which were used to defeat the May 17th agreement and resist Isareli occupation.”

"Once UN 194 (Palestinians’ right of return) is implemented we will give up our arms as a gift to the Lebanese people,” Abu Rishdi said today.

Palestinian factions held meetings with Prime Minister Fouad Siniora over the weekend to discuss Lebanon’s refusal to allow any weapons outside the Palestinian camps.

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