THURSDAY, MARCH 03, 2005
Go Syria, go: Russia, Germany join chorus
REUTERS
DAMASCUS: Russia and Germany joined an international chorus of demands for Syria to leave Lebanon, and President Bashar al-Assad was expected to travel to Saudi Arabia on Thursday for talks diplomats said would focus on a pullout.
"Syria should withdraw from Lebanon, but we all have to make sure that this withdrawal does not violate the very fragile balance which we still have in Lebanon, which is a very difficult country ethnically," Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told the BBC late on Wednesday.
Russia, Syria's main Cold War ally and still one of its best friends, abstained when the UN Security Council adopted US- and French-sponsored Resolution 1559 in September calling for foreign forces to leave Lebanon and militias to disarm. But Lavrov said the resolution, like any other Council measure, must be implemented — a stance that further ratcheted up world pressure on Syria to withdraw its 14,000 troops.
Damascus has faced mounting calls to end its military and political dominance of Lebanon since the February 14 assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri in a Beirut bomb blast.
Syria has denied any part in Hariri's killing and says Lebanon's state investigation will prove its innocence.
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