BEIRUT, 20 April 2006 — The Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah yesterday criticized a UN envoy’s call for Syria and Lebanon to work together to draw their shared border, describing it as pro-Israel. “This report conforms to Israeli demands,” Hezbollah MP Ali Ammar said, referring to a report by UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen in which he reiterated his call for Syria and Lebanon to take urgent steps to delineate their border.
In the report to the UN Security Council on Tuesday, he specifically urged the two neighbors to agree on demarcating the border in the Shebaa Farms area, a small mountainous territory at the convergence of the Lebanese-Syrian-Israeli borders. Israel captured the area from Syria in the 1967 Middle East War, and it is now claimed by Lebanon with Damascus’ consent. Israeli troops have retained control of the area since their withdrawal from south Lebanon in May 2000 after two decades of occupation.
Syrian President Bashar Assad has also blasted international calls for a demarcated border as pro-Israel and a harm to Hezbollah’s resistance struggle. Hezbollah has accused Roed-Larsen, currently in charge of overseeing the application of UN Security Council Resolution 1559 on the disarmament of Hezbollah and Palestinian groups in Lebanon, of meddling and trying to overreach his mandate.
Before departing for a visit to Washington earlier this week, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora said he would ask for US support for an Israeli withdrawal from the Shebaa Farms, which he views as a necessary step toward Hezbollah’s disarmament.
Damascus, which entered Lebanon in 1976 to quell the war, pulled its troops out a year ago after the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Many Lebanese blamed the murder on Syria, but Damascus has denied any role.
Since Roed-Larsen’s last report six months ago, Lebanese political leaders have initiated national talks to resolve long-simmering disputes including what to do about Hezbollah’s arms, and the latest report praised the talks as “historic.”
Meanwhile, UN investigators are expected to meet Bashar as early as tomorrow to discuss Syria’s alleged role in the killing of Hariri, Western diplomats and a Baath Party official said in Damascus yesterday.
The team, led by Belgian prosecutor Serge Brammertz, will also interview Vice President Farouk Shara, who was foreign minister when Hariri and 22 others were killed in a truck bomb in Beirut on Feb 14, 2005, they said yesterday.
