DAMASCUS, 20 July 2007 — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday flew in to Damascus where he and opposite number Bashar Assad issued a joint statement calling for unity in Syria’s neighbor, Lebanon. The two presidents met privately before officials from both sides joined their talks, state news agency SANA reported.
Afterward, they issued a statement saying that it “is necessary to consolidate national unity and harmony among all Lebanese to assure the stability and security of Lebanon.” They expressed their “support for all decisions taken by all Lebanese.” Syria was the power broker in Lebanon until two years ago, when it was forced by an international outcry to withdraw its troops from the country following the assassination of anti-Syrian former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri.
Since then, Lebanon has lurched from one political crisis to another, pitting pro— and anti-Syrian forces against each other. The statement also referred to the “right of the Lebanese people to resist repeated Israeli aggressions ... and to recover land occupied” by Israel, calling on the international community to force a halt to those alleged aggressions.
Israel ended its decades-long occupation of southern Lebanon seven years ago, but still holds on to a small sliver of land it captured from Syria in 1967 and which Lebanon now claims with Damascus’ approval. Last summer, Lebanon was devastated when Israel launched an assault on the country after guerrillas from the Shiite movement Hezbollah backed by both Syria and Iran, captured two Israeli soldiers.
During his Damascus visit, Ahmadinejad was to meet Syrian Vice President Farouk Shara and Prime Minister Naji Otri. Ahmadinejad also met Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah in the Syrian capital, witnesses said. It was also expected that Ahmadinejad would meet Khaled Meshaal, exiled head in Damascus of the Palestinian movement Hamas, a month after the Islamists seized control of Gaza after routing rival Fatah forces and effectively dividing the Palestinian territories.
Meanwhile, the Lebanese Army shelled Al-Qaeda-inspired militants cornered in parts of a Palestinian refugee camp yesterday and security sources said two more soldiers were killed in the fighting. They said one soldier was killed on Wednesday and the body of another was pulled from rubble in Nahr Al-Bared camp, raising the army toll to 111 dead since fighting began on May 20.
The army has pushed slowly into the camp, fighting close-quarter battles with Fatah Al-Islam militants after bombarding its positions with artillery and tank fire to try to force the group to surrender. At least 233 people have been killed in what is Lebanon’s worst internal violence since the 1975-1990 civil war.
