BEIRUT
Lebanon's most prominent Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt, has urged his coreligionists in Syria to make the "bold decision" of severing ties with the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad and joining the "revolution," which, he said, had raised "legitimate" demands.
"We need to sever what ties remain with the [Syrian] regime and work on reaching a full reconciliation with the revolutionaries, especially in Hauran, Daraa and Quneitra," Jumblatt said in his weekly op-ed, published on his Progressive Socialist Party's news portal.
"The Syrian regime will fall sooner or later," he added, urging Druze in Syria to "avoid the successive traps set up by the Syrian regime and maintain their history of fighting injustice."
"Tragic developments in Syria expose the [Syrian] regime's plot to pit sects and creeds against one another," said Jumblatt.
The Druze are a minority religious sect found primarily in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, whose belief system is historically derived from Shiite Islam.
The majority of the Druze community lives in the Syrian city of Sweida. The Druze community never adopted an overtly supportive position on the uprising in Syria since it erupted in 2011.
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