CAIRO, 23 June 2006 — Syria’s foreign minister said yesterday the time was not right to open an embassy in Lebanon, despite recent Lebanese and UN pleas that Syria establish formal diplomatic ties and mark out a common border.
A UN Security Council vote in May urged Syria to do so, and the United States said the burden was on Syria to establish full diplomatic ties and do more to stop the flow of weapons across the Syrian-Lebanese border.
“Any plan of this kind needs an opportune atmosphere between the two nations ...If there was an embassy in the shadow of a bad atmosphere, the ambassadors would be withdrawn or diplomatic relations would be ended,” Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Moualem told a news conference in Cairo.
He was speaking after Syrian President Bashar Assad had over three hours of talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
“We think that there would not be a problem of embassies but we need an opportune time. In demarcating the border, there are committees on the ground dealing with this,” he added.
Syria and Lebanon, which share a 250-km border, have not had embassies on each other’s territory since Western powers carved the two states out of the remnants of the Ottoman empire in 1920. Parts of their border remain in dispute.
Syria ended its 29-year military presence in Lebanon in April 2005, responding to international outrage and domestic protests over the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Al-Hariri.
UN investigators have cited evidence linking senior Syrian and Lebanese officials to Hariri’s killing. Moualem accused some Lebanese commentators of prejudging the investigation.
He gave the news conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit. Both urged Palestinian unity after recent clashes between rival political factions.
Supporters of the Hamas-led government have fought with followers of Fatah, led by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has proposed a referendum on a two-state solution.
Hamas opposes this but has postponed a bid to have the referendum declared illegal.
“If an internal consensus is reached before the referendum, this is something we are looking for because it will lead to internal agreement and will be followed by other steps,” Aboul Gheit said.
“If this dialogue fails, and we hope it will not, the moment of truth and the vision of the Palestinian people will lie in the referendum,” he added.
Mubarak Promises Unprecedented Reforms in 2007
President Mubarak promised in an interview published yesterday that the year 2007 would witness unprecedented constitutional reforms.
“The year 2007 will witness a surge in constitutional reforms which coincide with political progress” in Egypt, Mubarak told the state-owned Al-Ahram daily’s evening edition.
He added that, for the time being, he was deploying maximum efforts to promulgate “all the laws and legislation that forward political and economic reform, with the hope of completing the process by the end of 2006.”
Mubarak’s regime has been criticized at home and abroad, including by its top US ally, for dragging its feet on the sweeping reforms promised during the long-time president’s re-election campaign last year.
The Muslim Brotherhood, which controls a fifth of Parliament, and other opposition parties want constitutional reforms to turn Egypt into a parliamentary democracy.
