Israel jacks up pressure on Syria amid fears over Lebanese border
AFP
Date: 03-06-05
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel increased the diplomatic pressure on Damascus and joined chief ally Washington in deriding a Syrian promise to redeploy troops, amid fears that violence could flare on its northern border.
"The Syrians are dangerous. They have always been involved in terrorist attacks on Israel on the one hand, and on Americans in Iraq on the other," Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said Sunday before leaving for talks in Washington.
Israel -- technically still at war with Syria -- has joined mounting pressure on Damascus to recall its troops from Lebanon following the murder of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri amid fears of looming trouble on its Lebanese border.
Confronted by the intense diplomatic offensive, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Saturday announced that troops would withdraw to the eastern Bekaa valley and then to the Syrian frontier but refused to give a timetable.
Lebanon's outgoing Defence Minister Abdel Rahim Mrad said the much-awaited pullback will begin after a Lebanese-Syrian summit on Monday.
Shalom termed Assad's pledge as unacceptable and cosmetic, accusing Syria of "doing everything it can" not to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for an end to all foreign interference in Lebanon.
Less than 24 hours earlier the US State Department also castigated Assad's promise as insufficient.
Joining in, Ephraim Halevy, Israel's former top spy, also called for an end to Iranian support for Hezbollah -- the Shiite movement instrumental in the Jewish state's withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000.
A military expert for the liberal-leaning Haaretz daily said the Iranian Revolutionary Guard had given Hezbollah rockets capable of striking Israel.
"The withdrawal of the Syrian forces from Lebanon will boost Hezbollah's weight as a military organisation, leading in turn to a broader role for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in that country," wrote Zeev Schiff.
Editorial writer Smadar Peri, in Yediot Aharonot daily, also warned that Hezbollah had redeployed in Lebanon since Hariri's death and would "exploit every opportunity to carry out terror attacks in Israel."
In Beirut, Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said he was optimistic that Israel would soon pull out from the disputed Shebaa Farms area claimed by Lebanon.
Since 2000, Hezbollah -- backed by both Syria and its key regional ally Iran -- has effectively controlled Lebanon's deep south.
For its part, Tehran asserted that mounting international pressure on Syria was part of a plot orchestrated by Israel.
"The pressures on Syria, using the pretext of pulling out of Lebanon, is apparently a predetermined plan by the Zionist regime in order to guarantee the expansionist policies of Israel," said a foreign ministry spokesman.
The increasing diatribe has overshadowed efforts to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks following a landmark Middle East peace summit last month.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is to visit Washington in mid-April for talks with Bush, with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas expected at the White House at the end of March.
On Monday, Abbas is due to give a major policy speech before the Palestinian parliament, one week after winning world support for an ambitious package of political, economic and security reforms unveiled at a London conference.
The moderate leader is also due to meet dozens of members of his mainstream Fatah party who have resigned, in a bid to defuse a row over the old guard's grip on power, in the next 24 hours, officials said.
In Jerusalem, Jordanian Foreign Minister Hani Mulki and Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres agreed to cooperate on building a canal between the Red Sea and the Dead Sea in order to prevent the Dead Sea from drying up.
Mulki is the most senior Jordanian to visit Israel in four years as the two countries strive to breathe new life into relations.
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