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Syria calls for co-operation on Lebanon border control  |
BEIRUT: Syria’s border with Lebanon cannot be controlled without security co-operation with Beirut to strengthen the frontier, the Syrian foreign minister was quoted as saying yesterday.
Foreign Minister Walid Muallem told the pan-Arab Asharq Al Awsat newspaper there was smuggling both to and from Lebanon - which Syria dominated until 2005 when it was forced to withdraw troops from its smaller neighbour.
“The question of the border between Syria and Lebanon needs two actions: delineation (of the frontier) and Syrian-Lebanese security co-operation,” Muallem was quoted as saying. “...Nobody can control the borders with Lebanon.”
A UN Security Council resolution which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas called on Beirut to tighten border control to prevent arms smuggling.
A border assessment team dispatched by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in July concluded there had “been no decisive impact on overall border security”.
“The overall situation renders Lebanon’s borders as penetrable as they were one year ago during the first assessment,” it said in an August 26 report.
Muallem reiterated Syria’s denial that his country is the main transit route for weapons to Hezbollah — a political and military movement which has close ties to both Damascus and Tehran.
Syria kept a tight grip on security and politics in Lebanon until the 2005 assassination of former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri. The killing triggered international pressure which forced Syria to end a 29-year military presence in the country.
Damascus has recently warned of growing Islamist militancy in north Lebanon. The Syrian authorities have said a vehicle used in a suicide attack in Damascus on Saturday had crossed into the country from a neighbouring Arab state.
They have not named the country. Along with Lebanon, Syria’s Arab neighbours are Iraq and Jordan.
Syria sent hundreds of troops to its border with north Lebanon last week in a move the authorities said aimed to combat smuggling. Syria’s foes in Lebanon have speculated Damascus could use insecurity in the north as a pretext for intervention.
Lebanese President Michel Suleiman said the Syrian deployment should be seen as part of efforts to strengthen the border, Interior Minister Ziad Baroud said after a meeting with the head of state. “The deployment of the Syrian army on the border comes in this context,” Baroud said.
Syria and Lebanon have never formally delineated their shared border. Formal delineation of the frontier is another UN Security Council demand. The countries’ presidents agreed at an August summit to resume the work of a joint committee tasked with drawing the frontier.
“We are waiting for the Lebanese government to carry out steps from its side for us to undertake that,” Muallem said.
He said diplomatic relations could be resumed before the end of this year and that exchanging ambassadors was also possible.
Lebanon and Syria agreed last month to establish diplomatic relations during a meeting in Damascus between Suleiman and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Muallem’s remarks were published as an unnamed US official was quoted by the pan-Arab daily Al Hayat as warning Syria against “using the latest spree of bomb attacks in Damascus and Tripoli as pretext for Syrian intervention in Lebanese affairs.”
The senior US State Department official said world powers had warned Syria against sending forces to Lebanon. “The international community has made it clear to Syria that it cannot send its forces into Lebanon,” the official was quoted by Al Hayat as saying. - Agencies
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