Rice Says Lebanon”s Problems Are Not Over But She is Proud of Backing it
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said at a farewell U.N. appearance Monday she was "proud" that people were talking about an independent and sovereign Lebanon in a way she hasn”t heard before.
Rice spoke to reporters after a meeting of the diplomatic Quartet of Mideast peacemakers — the U.S., the U.N., the European Union and Russia.
She said many things changed in the region not only in 2001 but also in 2005.
She said Syrian forces withdrew from Lebanon, the country elected a president, got a democratically elected prime minister and Beirut and Damascus seem ready to establish diplomatic ties as two independent states.
There are also international efforts to find ways to put all arms under the control of the state, Rice told reporters.
As a result of diplomatic efforts in the aftermath of the Hizbullah-Israel war in 2006, the Lebanese army is now deployed throughout the country, she said.
While acknowledging that problems were by no means resolved, she said she was "very proud and very grateful" that we are now in a situation where people talk about an independent and sovereign Lebanon in a way she hasn”t heard before.
This is the result of not only the policy of the United States, but also the willingness of the Lebanese people and its insistence to be sovereign and independent, she stressed.
Rice also said that Israel and the Palestinians have moved much further along the path to peace since President George Bush brought their leaders together a year ago — though they won”t clinch an agreement by the end of the year.
"They won”t achieve agreement by the end of the year, but they have achieved a good deal of progress in their negotiations, a good deal of progress in the work that is being done on the ground," Rice said.
"This is the first time in almost a decade that Palestinians and Israelis are addressing all of the core issues in a comprehensive way to try to get to a solution, and if that process takes a little bit longer, so be it," she said. "But we are very much further along, certainly than we were in 2001, and I would argue even than in 2007 when Annapolis was concluded."
The Annapolis agreement called for the Israelis and Palestinians to try to end their decades-long conflict and sign a peace agreement by the end of 2008, which would have given Bush a diplomatic victory just before turning the presidency over to Barack Obama.