US Official: Syria Should Convince Us That It Will Stop Assassinations in Lebanon
A US State Department official said that Syrian authorities should “convince us that they will stop their assassination activities in Lebanon,” An-Nahar newspaper reported on Tuesday.
He said that Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Mouallem’s meetings with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Welch in New York demonstrated that Syria was taking positive steps, but called the Mouallem-Welch meeting “cold.”
He added that claims that the Bush administration was reconsidering its policy of isolating Syria were an exaggeration. The US, he said, will not change its policy until there are improvements in problematic areas in Damascus.
He also said that the Syrian position toward Lebanon will be clarified after the implementation of border demarcation and the exchange of embassies between the countries. Welch, he said, has warned the Syrian authorities, through Mouallem, that the deployment of troops along Lebanon’s northern borders was wrong.
He said that Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Hale visited Lebanon to offer reassurance that the Lebanese dossier was still an American concern and that US President George Bush’s policy toward Lebanon was clear and will remain unchanged.
He added that the US had offered economic aid and made efforts with its alliances in the United Nations Security Council to enforce UN Security Council resolutions 1559 and 1701.
“There is no friend closer to Lebanon than Bush and the US,” he concluded.