Bush tells Abdullah time not ripe for dialogue with Syria

The king for his part told the president at a dinner at Amman's Raghadan Palace that a solution to the Palestinian problem must be found to reduce tensions in the Middle East, according to a Royal Palace statement.

"The two main topics of the discussions were the situation in Lebanon and Syria's role in it, and the Israeli-Palestinian situation," said the White House official who asked not to be named.

Neighboring Iraq was also brought up during the dinner, attended by colleagues of the two leaders including US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, "but it really was not the focus," the official said.

"There was a lot of concern expressed about the role that Syria is playing in Lebanon and its failure to heed UN Security Council Resolutions 1559 and 1701," he went on.

Those resolutions dating respectively from September 2004 and August 2005 basically affirmed Lebanon's sovereignty over its territory.

"The president made clear his view that this is not the time for engagement with Syria because the Syrian government always seems to see any such form of engagement as a gesture of approval, or as a way of getting off the hook for actions that it is taking," the official said.

There have been growing calls in the United States and abroad for Bush to accept direct discussions with his administration's two bugbears in the region, Syria and Iran, to contribute to restoring stability in their neighbor Iraq.

Source

About headlines and content that has changed after it was added to this site - see disclaimer here

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.