DAMASCUS - Syria will keep supporting Hamas and Hezbollah despite US threats to impose more sanctions on it, a government newspaper said yesterday.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice threatened this week to toughen sanctions Washington imposed on Syria in 2004, mainly because of its support for the two movements, which Washington regards as "terrorist organisations".

"Syria is more determined to stand by the resistance until the land is liberated and Israel is defeated," an editorial in the newspaper Baath said.

Both Hezbollah and Hamas refuse to recognise Israel.

"If the US administration is serious about combating terrorism then it should play a constructive role in pushing forward the peace process on the basis of UN resolutions 242 and 338," the newspaper said.

The UN resolutions, passed decades ago, emphasise the inadmissibility of acquiring territory through war, call on Israel to withdraw from Arab land it has occupied since 1967 and call for negotiations to reach a "just and durable peace" in the Middle East.

"Absolute US support for Israel is one of the main causes behind regional instability. The US has helped Israel in the UN stand against any proposal for a comprehensive settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict," the newspaper said.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem told the UN General Assembly this week that the world pays the price when the US government thinks it knows what Arabs want better than the Arabs themselves.

Diplomats in Damascus say Washington was also angered by the Syrian response to an attack carried out by Muslim militants on the US embassy in Damascus on September 12.

Syrian security forces foiled the attack, but Syrian officials later said US policies in the region and US support for Israel were to blame because they had provoked the four Syrians who carried out the attack. – Reuters