Press Digest for Monday May 06, 2013

The following are summaries of today's major stories published in the Arabic press. LBCI does not edit press digest articles for content, giving English-language readers insight into the various views expressed in newspapers across the Arab world.

• Assad to US authorities: Response to any new aggression will be immediate     

Sources close to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told the Kuwaiti Daily Al-Rai, that President Assad is waiting for a reply on a letter that he sent to US authorities via Russian officials.                        

“If Israel resumes its aggressions, this will be considered as a war declaration,” the newspaper cited President Assad as saying in the letter.
                                
In this regard, the newspaper said that “the Syrian reaction will not be studied seemingly since orders were given to deploy modern Russian air-to-land and land-to-land missiles’ batteries whose reply will be immediate without referring to authorities”.              

• Interior Ministry to receive names of female prisoners in Damascus
  

Caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel said that the broadcast videotape pertaining to the Lebanese detainees in Syria’s Aazaz is a positive sign from kidnappers who promised to send this video.           

Charbel told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper that the ministry is expected to receive within 48 hours the names of the female prisoners in Damascus and consequently deliver them to the General Security Chief Major General Abbas Ibrahim who will communicate with Syrian authorities.                    

• Salam to submit his resignation if major cabinet component resigns    

Sources close to Prime Minister-Designate Tammam Salam said on Monday that the latter is adherent to the standards that he set as a basis to form the new cabinet.                         

In this regard, the sources mentioned that MP Salam insists on dividing the governmental portfolios on members from both March 8 and 14, as well as others from the centrist bloc.                     

Sources told Al-Hayat newspaper that MP Salam is adherent to this formula since “it provides the minimum level of political stability in the cabinet”.       

Al-Hayat sources quoted MP-Salam as saying that the centrist bloc takes into account the concerns of the parties and he will submit his resignation if a major component of the cabinet resigns.