Syrian President Bashar al-Assad rebuffed renewed US pressure to rein in Lebanese militant group Hezbollah on Thursday during an unscheduled visit here by Washington's top Middle East diplomat.
Assad told William Burns, the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, that Israel and not Hezbollah was the principal source of violence and instability in the region.
"Appeals for calm and restraint should not be addressed solely to Lebanon, while a blind eye is turned to the massacres and assassinations being carried out by Israel," the official SANA news agency quoted Assad as saying.
The Syrian president questioned whether Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was even committed to a US-backed "road map" for Middle East peace, given his rejection of President George W Bush's calls for the abandonment of a security fence Israel is constructing through the West Bank.
"Sharon is continuing to build the wall of discrimination despite the opposition of Bush to the establishment of settlements and his army is launching incursions [into West Bank towns], destroying houses and killing Palestinians," Assad said.
"Wisdom compels the US, the world's biggest power, to help the Palestinians to recover their rights and to establish a just and durable peace in the region," he said, accusing Sharon of a "strategy of war and not a policy of peace."
On Iraq, Assad said Syria is "opposed to the American occupation and hopes that this country is led by a legitimate government."
The meeting was termed "constructive" by the head of the foreign ministry's information department, Bussaina Shabane, who said that differences still existed between the two sides on a number of issues.
US State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Burns had made his unscheduled visit to Damascus to discuss "a range of issues," including recent Hezbollah attacks into the disputed Shebaa Farms area on Israel's northern border with Lebanon.
Those attacks have drawn swift retaliation from Israel and US demands for both Lebanon and Syria to use their influence to rein in Hezbollah, and Burns repeated that message to Assad.
He "stressed the need for Syria to do what it can and should do to restrain support for these groups," Casey said.
Syria has rejected similar demands in the past but did take some limited steps to downgrade offices in Damascus earlier this year after a visit by US Secretary of State Colin Powell.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS