AMMAN, 20 August 2004 — US Congressman Tom Lantos yesterday described a visit to Syria the previous day as a “major disappointment” because of Damascus’ failure to cut alleged links with terrorist groups.
“Syria was a major disappointment,” Lantos told reporters at the US Embassy in Amman following talks here with Jordan’s King Abdallah and Foreign Minister Marwan Moasher which he said covered Syria “at length”.
Lantos said he met Syrian President Bashar Assad in the spring of 2003 and urged him to “cease” ties and support “to terrorist groups”, including the Hezbollah resistance movement.
He also told Assad that he must withdraw an estimated 16,000 Syrian troops deployed in Lebanon, Lantos said.
“Lebanon is a sovereign country. It should not be occupied by Syrian troops,” he said. “On this visit I emphasized my disappointment and my regret that apparently Syria has not yet decided decisively, conclusively that it wishes to engage in the global war on terrorism,” Lantos said.
“It is deeds not words in this struggle that we are looking for and supporting Hezbollah strengthens global terrorism. Syria is doing precisely that,” he added. Lantos met Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Al-Shara in Damascus but not Bashar, having been told that the president was “out of town”.
Asked if he considered this a snub, Lantos said: “I should think that President Assad fully understands that I am in a far better position to do things for him than he in a position to do things for me.
“It is in his interest to meet with me, far more than my interest to meet with him,” he said.
Lantos, the senior Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, has visited Libya and Egypt as part of a tour of the region and heads to Israel after Jordan.
“Had you asked me a year ago whether I would think Libya or Syria would be likely to make a significant and dramatic turn towards living with the 21st century, I would not have guessed that it would be Libya,” he said.
