By Hadi Khatib
Lebanonwire staff

The Syrian delegation at the UN has challenged the UN General Assembly to provide answers regarding UN Security Resolution 1559, showing how it relates to the issue of demarcating borders with Lebanon and Syria and establishing diplomatic relations between the countries, as UN Special Envoy for the implementation of such a resolution Terje-Roed Larsen is reportedly pushing for the draft of a new resolution to include such items.

Daily Al-Hayat reported Wednesday that the Syrian diplomats are refusing to approve funding for Larsen’s mission unless the UN General Assembly provided such answers.

The daily said that sources in Damascus had a week ago told Al-Hayat that Syria would retract such a request and would not stand in the way of approving Larsen’s funding, but the Syrian delegation had reneged on their promise “insisting on receiving answers in that regard before it approves funding on any special UN missions across the world and especially pertaining to those related to Lebanon, Larsen’s mission and the UN team in charge of investigating the former premier Rafiq Hariri’s murder.

The daily said that one of the questions the Syrian delegation asked was “does welcoming Larsen’s three earlier reports on the implementation of UN 1559 by the Security Council mean it approves of the expansion of the envoy’s mission to include such items as establishing diplomatic relations or the demarcation of the common borders between Syria and Lebanon which are clearly not implied in the said resolution?”

The daily said the General Assembly was until a late hour discussing the Syrian request and expects it to issue a clarification soon. A diplomat attending the closed session told the daily “the interruptions by the Syrian diplomats were continuous, but we shall see if they will insist on crossing out those two items before signing on the funding.”

Al-Balad daily published a report Wednesday saying Larsen has asked France, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, to issue a new draft security resolution that included articles on the border demarcation and diplomatic relations between Lebanon and Syria and on the disarming of militias in Lebanon.

The daily said that Lahoud’s presidency issue would not be part of that draft resolution “since his removal from office was rejected by Russia, China, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Egypt” during a recent trip Larsen made in the region.

Al-Mustaqbal daily published a statement from Hezbollah’s International Relations spokesperson Nawwaf Moussaoui where he said “Larsen is setting us a trap that we should avoid falling into...especially with his calls for the resistance to abandon its arms and merge with the Lebanese Army.”

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