Iraqi minister asks Syria to watch its border
Reuters
Date: 05-31-05
By Evelyn Leopold
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Iraq's foreign minister said on Tuesday that Syria was a key transit route for "foreign terrorists" as well as remnants of the Saddam Hussein regime and urged Damascus to do more to stop them.
Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari was addressing the U.N. Security Council to express support for the continued presence in Iraq of the 160,000-strong U.S.-led multinational force.
The U.N. mandate for the force is up for review and Baghdad, which can request its withdrawal, wants it to stay.
Zebari said he expected that what he called the "campaign of destruction and intimidation" by insurgents, which has intensified since the formation of an Iraqi government on April 28, would continue, especially during the drafting of a new constitution in the coming months.
Zebari, a Kurd, acknowledged a statement by Syria's U.N. envoy, Fayssal Mekdad, last week that Damascus had stopped more than 1,200 people from entering Iraq in the past few months.
"We welcome this action but note that it confirms our long-held view that Syria has been one of the main transit routes for foreign terrorists, as well as for remnants of the previous regime," Zebari said.
"Here we would like to urge our brothers in Syria to do more to prevent the movement of extremist elements from entering our country," he said.
Syrian officials said last week military and intelligence cooperation between Damascus and the United States had ended after a slew of American accusations that Damascus was not doing enough.
On Tuesday, Mekdad told reporters, "We're doing our best," adding that instability in Iraq meant instability in Syria too.
Zebari said the United Nations should bolster its assistance in helping Iraq draft a new constitution, due by Aug. 15, which he called "the most critical test for the future of our country."
"We are aware that the U.N. is moving to extend its technical assistance and we urge that this process is accelerated," Zebari told the council.
U.N. officials, however, said they sent seven experts to Iraq in April but Baghdad's formal request for their help on a constitution had just arrived.
The constitution will serve as a foundation for the new Iraq state and has to be approved by parliament and in a referendum at the end of the year.
Anne Patterson, the acting U.S. ambassador, said there was no "specific timeline" for the withdrawal of multinational forces. But she said the foreign troops would not stay any longer than necessary and could not leave "until the Iraqis can meet the serious security challenges they face."
Russia delayed a perfunctory Security Council statement on the presence of the U.N. force Iraq for "technical reasons," its U.N. ambassador, Andrei Denisov, told reporters. He expected the problem to be solved within a day.
Diplomats said Moscow objected to not being included in a Cairo planning meeting on Thursday for a major donor conference on Iraq in Brussels on June 22.
Source
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