Lebanonwire.com | Syria 'urgently' needs to withdraw from Lebanon: US

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March 30, 2005

Syria 'urgently' needs to withdraw from Lebanon: US
by Christophe de Roquefeuil

WASHINGTON - US officials on Wednesday reacted cautiously to a new Syrian promise to withdraw its troops from Lebanon before legislative elections scheduled for May, and kept up strong pressure for an immediate Syrian withdrawal.

State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli declined to comment on a letter from Syrian Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shara to UN chief Kofi Annan on Tuesday that said Syria would pull its troops out of Lebanon before the elections scheduled for May.

"I'll leave it to the UN to comment on it. That was a letter from him to them," Ereli said.

However he did say that Washington's view "is that there is a clear and straightforward consensus among the members of the international community, including within the (UN) Security Council, that this is an issue that needs to be resolved urgently so that the Lebanese can have real elections, untainted by foreign interference," he said.

Ereli said Damascus should follow UN Security Council resolution 1559, which calls for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Lebanon.

"The focus has to be on the full and complete implementation of 1559," he said. "That is the standard by which we will assess the situation."

The resolution "is clear, its benchmarks are clear, and that's how we will assess the results, not by statements of intent or partial moves or where things are at different stages on different days; it is by full implementation of 1559," Ereli said.

Ereli added that Washington also wants to see members of Syria's poweful intelligence services withdrawn from Lebanon.

Special UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen discussed Wednesday with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice his efforts to achieve the resolution's implementation, and discussed his upcoming trip to Lebanon, Ereli said.

"I think we're all on the same page. We all want to see a Syrian withdrawal of all its forces and intelligence assets before elections take place," Ereli said.

Syrian units entered neighboring Lebanon in 1976 to serve as a buffer between warring factions in the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war.

An estimated 4,000 Syrian troops have returned home while the rest, some 10,000, have redeployed to eastern Lebanon.

Parliamentary elections in Lebanon are due to take place by May 31 when the house's mandate runs out, but the pro-Syrian camp has raised judicial and technical grounds for the polls to be delayed.

Prime minister-designate Omar Karameh, who plans to resign, said Wednesday his caretaker cabinet was not entitled to organise the elections and "handle a controversial issue like that of the electoral bill".

The opposition has accused the outgoing pro-Syrian government of seeking to postpone the elections for fear of being swept from parliament by the wave of anger over the February 14 murder of former premier Rafiq Hariri.

Last Thursday US officials organized a meeting at the State Department with Syrian opposition figures that was led by Elizabeth Cheney, deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs and one of Vice President Dick Cheney's daughters.