DR BUTHAINA SHAABAN, SYRIAN CABINET MINISTER: Well, first of all I were shocked at the language that the President of the only superpower uses and second, I felt that he was avoiding the real issue, which is that Israel is the one who was launching the war against Lebanon. Because what Hezbollah said is that they want an exchange of prisoners and now, 20 years into the war, we can see that Hezbollah and Syria and everyone else is calling for an immediate cease-fire. It is only the Israel and the US who refuse to have an immediate cease-fire who say they need 10 more days of carnage in Lebanon before that cease-fire.

GEORGE NEGUS: There are those people that say that all it is needed is for your President Assad to pick up the phone and tell Hezbollah to stop. That is what happened when Bill Clinton said that to your previous president.

DR BUTHAINA SHAABAN: Well, I think the course of events during this three weeks have shown an amazing ignorance of Hezbollah on the side of the Israelis and on the side of the Americans. I think they have no clue who Hezbollah is, what Hezbollah is made of. They only consider Hezbollah as a party who can be influenced by Syria or Iran. Hezbollah is a resistance Lebanese political party that has its own agenda, its own mindset. We share the framework of what needs to be done in the Middle East. But I think it is a huge under-estimation of the resistance movement to say that the Syrian President can pick up the phone and pressure them and everything will be over.

GEORGE NEGUS: You, Syria, are perhaps the only state that can guarantee a lasting peace by the influence that you can have on Hezbollah. Why can't you help the world by helping them out of the deadlock? It looks like it has degenerated into a futile blame game.

DR BUTHAINA SHAABAN : Very true. Syria has been since the 1990s has been calling for a comprehensive peace and I think it is the only country that could play a key role to achieve this peace, but before achieving anything you need to have a cease-fire. I mean, that is what Syria, and Hezbollah and now many countries of the world are joining in. The European Union has now joined in. It has now announced they are calling for an immediate cease-fire as have 25 countries of the world - Russia, Spain, Germany. But Israel does not want to have a cease-fire.

GEORGE NEGUS: But there is no indication Hezbollah is going to stop sending rockets into northern Israel either. In fact, they're threatening to send rockets further into Israel. Both sides are flying in the face of the rest of the world.

DR BUTHAINA SHAABAN: Hezbollah has put an initiative - the speaker of Parliament was mandated by Hezbollah to speak to the world and before the Qana massacre at which as you know 37 children were killed and many more women and he put a new initiative saying an immediate cease-fire an exchange of prisoners and then to address the initial between Lebanon and Israel. Condoleezza Rice came to the region and said we can't have a cease-fire, it is not time to the cease-fire, She went to Rome and said the same thing. There is one side calling for an immediate cease-fire who are the Arabs and there is Israel and the US who do not want a cease-fire because they have an agenda. After destroying Iraq and Palestine they want to destroy Lebanon and then to create a new Middle East. It is an announced agenda it is not a hidden agenda.

GEORGE NEGUS: But many observers as I say, believe that Syria, you, have the power to make Hezbollah stop fighting because you and Iran are under Hezbollah's political umbrella. More than any other state people believe you have the power to stop fighting at least from the Hezbollah side.

DR BUTHAINA SHAABAN: I said that before. I mean, how could Hezbollah stop the fighting while Israel carried on the air strikes, huge ground invasion, massacres every day, not allowing humanitarian assistance. What do you expect from Hezbollah - to sit there and welcome the Israeli missiles and sit still? I mean Israel announced that it will have a 48-hour truce and then it didn't. It didn't, you know, implement that. It continued with its air strikes. If you see what is happening in Lebanon now it is a horrific destruction, a horrid destruction.

GEORGE NEGUS: Minister - the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman said yesterday that a cease-fire must not allow a situation where the minute the guns stop you will have lorry after lorry, truck after truck bringing in from Syria more Iranian missiles Iranian rockets and Iranian weaponry for Hezbollah. As he puts it, that puts everyone back to square one.

DR BUTHAINA SHAABAN: I just hope the world would know the truth about things. Yesterday, the Israeli foreign minister said the war can't stop now and the Israeli cabinet has decided they want to go on with the war for at least a week to decide what to do.

GEORGE NEGUS: Minister how long will we have to go on like this. You said genuinely you want peace. The Israelis say they want peace. How much longer we have to go on hearing both sides of this squabble which is killing so many people blaming each other?

DR BUTHAINA SHAABAN: People in our region, the Arabs are tired of so much destruction. Today 70 people killed in Iraq, 30 people in Palestine, 50 people in Lebabon. Unless the world stops Israel from doing what it is doing in a region of terrorism, of destruction of war crimes it is going to go on the on Syria, beyond Egypt.

GEORGE NEGUS: Could I ask you this, would your country, your president or even yourself ever considered talking directly to the Americans in an attempt to break the current deadlock. Secretary of State's Condoleezza Rice is now talking about the possibility of a ceasefire - have you thought of contacting her if you like woman to woman, don’t you have to open the lines of communication with the Americans before we reach a point of no return?

DR BUTHAINA SHAABAN: They don’t like to talk to people who have dignity. I think because Syria has dignity and because Syria says the truth the US does not want to talk to Syria. We are ready to talk to the United States but on a parity of integrity, but not as subservient. We are dignified people and the fact that we are a small country does not mean we have at smaller dignity. We have just as much dignity.

GEORGE NEGUS: Condoleezza Rice herself in the past couple of days has actually said ‘the problem is not that the people have not talked to the Syrians, but that the Syrians have not acted.

DR BUTHAINA SHAABAN: Can I answer her through you George, the Secretary of State, I’m sure Condoleezza Rice knows that people should first think and then speak and then act. They don’t act before talking and before thinking and I am terribly disappointed with Secretary Rice to come to Beirut and to come to Rome as a woman and to see all this destruction and yet not be able to call for an immediate cease-fire. As a woman I am very disappointed.

GEORGE NEGUS: Many around the world are saying please Syria, please Damascus, please President Assad, please apply pressure to Hezbollah to stop firing their rockets into northern Israel has some indication of their integrity where peace is concerned.

DR BUTHAINA SHAABAN: What can we say to Hezbollah when the United States has sent so far four planes of smart bombs and they kill children and women and they continue to send these bombs they refuse to tell Israel to have a ceasefire. I really believe there is a lack of moral and political leadership in this world that is restraining Israel from this and asking them to have an immediate ceasefire. So what should we say to Hezbollah just be killed? What should we say to them?

GEORGE NEGUS: Thank you very much for your time and I hope the next time we talk, we are talking in a time of peace not war.

DR BUTHAINA SHAABAN: Thank you so much, so do I, so do I – our people need peace in this region.