War (of Words) with Syria
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Thursday, May 01, 2003
[Signs of conciliation from Syria. Analysis of issues expected to be covered in Powell's meeting.]
U.S. - Syrian Ties Face Critical Moment
The Associated Press via The New York Times -- May 1
DAMASCUS, Syria -- In the days before Secretary of State Colin Powell's visit to Damascus, Syria has given indications it wants to avoid a collision course with Washington.
It has sealed its border with Iraq. It has expelled more than 30 Iraqis, many from Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. It coordinated with the Americans the departure from Syria of one-time Iraqi intelligence official Farouk Hijazi, who is now in U.S. custody.
And its state-run newspapers are putting a positive spin on Powell's trip, scheduled to begin Friday.
``We hope that Powell's visit would achieve the hoped-for positive results and would be a real start for U.S.-Syrian relations,'' the daily Al-Thawra said Wednesday.
Syria: Powell to be welcomed for dialogue
UPI -- May 1
By Dalal Saoud
BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Sharaa said Thursday U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell was being welcomed in Damascus to hold a dialogue to repair damaged ties.
He told reporters in Beirut: "We welcome Mr. Powell in Damascus and he will naturally receive the adequate hospitality. All what we wish to hear from him, he can relay to us in a form of dialogue and explain what is going on in the region on the bases of the declared positions from the United States and Syria."
On Thursday, Sharaa said Syria will be ready to answer U.S. questions "in a spirit that does not derive from a state of enmity or fulfillment of others' demands."
Asked about U.S. demands to disarm Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group, which Syria backs, and cease support for Damascus-based Palestinian militant groups, Sharaa said: "I won't answer any question related to demands because we did not hear these demands and no one asked us these matters."
He said part of the "intimidation campaign" against Syria was being led by media networks that he didn't identify, and Sharaa warned that "we should not bow to that degree about repeated demands being presented by Israel to Washington and then Washington reflecting them in some media."
He said Hezbollah was a Lebanese political party and Lebanese officials were better placed to answer any U.S. queries about it.
But he said: "Attention should be directed to the Israeli occupation in the first degree before it is being directed to those who resist occupation."
Syria-Based Palestinian Group Slams 'Road Map'
Reuters -- May 1
DAMASCUS - A radical Palestinian group based in Syria on Thursday criticized the "road map," the new Middle East peace plan, as being "unbalanced" and said it gave Israel the upper hand.
"The implementation of the plan is based on successive rather than parallel steps by both sides, thus leaving control in the hands of the government of (Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon..." the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) said in a statement.
The DFLP, one of several Palestinian factions that support the 31-month-old uprising for independence as a legitimate form of struggle for freedom, said the terms of the plan would "leave Palestinians under the force of the occupation tanks, arrests and assassinations."
Lebanon rejects French call
IRIB (Iran) -- May 1
Beirut - Lebanon rejected French calls on Wednesday for a complete withdrawal of Syrian forces from its territory, with Foreign Minister Jean Obeid saying it was a matter solely between the two countries.
French Foriegn Minister Dominique De Villepin had called in a phone call to Damascus for Syria to leave Lebanon.
But Obeid told reporters tersely: "Syria's military presence in Lebanon, which France links to an overall solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, only concerns Beirut and Damascus and their mutual interests.
"Their presence is set out in the inter-Lebanese peace agreement of Taif, supported by the United Nations and the Arab League.
It is also a feature of the treaty of fraternity, cooperation and coordination signed between Lebanon and Syria."
[Do the Israelis have to make their demands on the US so obvious? The word for today is "subtlety". Look it up, Ayalon.]
Israeli envoy urges regime change in Syria and Iran
The Guardian -- April 29
Oliver Burkeman in Washington
Israel's ambassador to the US called for "regime change" in Iran and Syria yesterday as players in the Middle East staked out their positions before a crucial Palestinian vote that is expected to trigger publication of the American-backed "road map" to peace.
Removing Saddam Hussein was "not enough", said Daniel Ayalon. But war against Syria and Iran was not the answer, he added, advocating isolating them diplomatically, imposing economic sanctions and using "psychological pressure".
The war in Iraq "has to follow through", he told a conference in Washington of the Anti-Defamation League, an organisation that campaigns against anti-semitism. "We still have great threats of that magnitude coming from Syria, coming from Iran."
[Graham on Syria, Lebanon, Hezbollah.]
Senator criticizes tax and Iraq policies
The Miami Herald (via SJ Merc) -- April 28
BY TYLER BRIDGES
Sen. Bob Graham criticized President George W. Bush for his tax and Iraq policies Sunday, in his first appearance on national television as a presidential candidate.
Graham also criticized Bush saying the United States ought to confront the Syrian government over terrorist groups -- such as Hezbollah -- based in Syria and Syria-controlled northern Lebanon. Graham said those terrorist groups present the greatest threat to Americans.
The Bush administration has been reluctant to challenge Syria overtly, preferring to wage war on Iraq.
''We have virtually abandoned the war on terrorism,'' Graham said. ``We have withdrawn military and intelligence capabilities from Afghanistan, and because of that, al Qaeda has been able to regroup, that we have not taken on the A-team of Hezbollah and the others in Syria and Lebanon, that we have allowed our alliances, which are going to be absolutely critical to winning the war on terrorism, to disintegrate.''
[Anti-Hezbollah editorial.]
Ada'af al Imaan (Hezbollah's Arms)
Dar al hayat (Lebanon) -- April 30
Dawood Al Shirian
The Lebanese people yearn for Hezbollah's disarmament even more than the Americans do. The party's armament remains the main political problem in Lebanon, since the Taif Accords. But the occupation of the South prompted all parties and confessions in the country to overlook this problem. But this does not mean that the party's armament is an intentional Lebanese national policy. The issue is made to appear natural, namely that the resistance's units are not emergency military groups or that they are in barracks, but rather citizens living in their villages. But based on this logic, other confessions and groups would have to be armed, and to protect themselves and their villages, and this would take Lebanon straight back to the era of militias.
[Hezbollah stands its ground.]
Hezbollah: U.S. Demands To Disarm Us "Will Not Be Met With A Positive Response"
Dar al hayat (Lebanon) -- April 29
Walid Choucair
Hussein Al Khalil, Assistant Secretary General of Hezbollah, said that the request the United States made to Lebanon and Syria that the party be disarmed "will not meet a favorable response."
In an interview with Al Hayat, he said: "I will not speak on behalf of Syria and the Lebanese government. But according to our reading of the Lebanese situation, I believe that this demand will not meet a favorable response."
"With regard to Hezbollah," he added, "the U.S. and Israel carried out an aggression against Lebanon in July 1993 under that same pretext. But that aggression failed. And in April 1996, the enemy made another attempt at a larger scale, and mobilized all its supporters around the world, rallying them at the Sharm Al Sheikh summit. But in the end, Hezbollah and Lebanon came out stronger than before. Today, if the enemy repeats the same foolish action, then the party will adopt the same position, and God willing, we will have similar results."
Al Hayat asked Al Khalil about the American demand that Hezbollah withdraw from the frontiers with Israel and that the Lebanese army deploy in the area. Al Khalil answered: "there is nothing in our dictionary called the withdrawal of Hezbollah from the South. Our sons and those of the resistance are the sons of all villages located throughout the South. We are not a foreign military group in barracks. We cannot ask people to leave their villages."
About the deployment of the Lebanese army in the South, he said: "there are two theories in this respect; the first is the demand that the army should be in charge of security in the South, which is already the case since the army is present throughout the area. The second theory calls upon the army to defend Israel. We don't believe the army will defend the Israeli occupation."
[New Lebanese pro-Syria cabinet wins vote of confidence.]
Lebanon cabinet wins parliament confidence
UPI -- April 30
By Dalal Saoud
BEIRUT, Lebanon -- A majority of Lebanon's 128-member Parliament granted the new Cabinet of Prime Minister Rafic Hariri a vote of confidence Wednesday.
Some 85 parliamentarians voted in favor, 14 abstained and 12 voted against the 30-member half-Christian, half-Muslim body. Seventeen deputies did not attend Wednesday's session, which wrapped up two days of deliberations during which deputies criticized the hasty formation of the new Cabinet.
Hariri emphasized the need to join hands to confront "the political and pan-Arab challenges facing the Arab region and Syria."
He told parliamentarians the "delicate internal political conditions and the sensitive circumstances facing the Arab region" accelerated the formation of a new Cabinet on April 17.
The government included 11 newcomers but kept away Christian opponents and the Hezbollah militant group. Most Cabinet members are supporters or sympathizers of Syria, the main power broker in Lebanon.
France urges Syria to pull troops out of Lebanon
Reuters -- April 30
By Tom Heneghan
PARIS, April 30 - France urged Syria on Wednesday to withdraw all its troops from Lebanon, support the "road map" for Middle East peace and pressure radical Arab groups to end their campaigns of violence.
"We must seize this unique chance," he said in what appeared to be the clearest French statement to date of the need to end Syria's troop presence in Lebanon, a country Paris administered under a League of Nations mandate between the two world wars.
"Lebanon needs to return quickly...to full independence and sovereignty. The condition for this is the withdrawal of all foreign troops and the deployment of Lebanese forces on the border with Israel," Villepin said.
"Syria can make a gesture and continue the withdrawal already undertaken," he said, referring to the pullout in February of about 4,000 troops from northern Lebanon, the latest in a series of redeployments and withdrawals that reduced the number of Syrian troops in Lebanon to 16,000-17,000.
Syria poured thousands of troops into neighbouring Lebanon early in the 1975-1990 civil war to save Christian militias from defeat by Muslim, leftist and Palestinian forces. Damascus later turned on them when they sided with arch-foe Israel.
Lebanese Foreign Minister Jean Obeid said the Syrian presence, part of the 1989 Taif accords that helped end the country's civil war, was still needed.
"Lebanon considers this presence necessary, legal and temporary, and will work on this matter on that basis and in that spirit," he said in a statement.