ALEPPO, Syria, 13 March 2005 — Syria will honor its commitment to withdraw all its troops in Lebanon as demanded by a UN Security Council resolution and a detailed timetable will be submitted within a week for the two-phase pullout, a presidential statement said here yesterday.
The statement was broadcast by Syrian TV and radio stations immediately after UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen met with President Bashar Assad at the northern city of Aleppo to discuss the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559 pertaining to the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.
“I am so encouraged by President Bashar’s commitment to fully implement the Security Council Resolution 1559. Upon my arrival in New York next week, I will present to Secretary-General Kofi Annan further details about the timetable for complete Syrian troop withdrawal from Lebanon,” Larsen said after his “very fruitful” meeting with Bashar.
The meeting was attended by Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Shara and his deputy Walid Al-Muallem.
According to the state-run Syrian TV, all Syrian troops in Lebanon will be redeployed into the eastern Bekaa Valley before the end of this month, and all the troops will be withdrawn within the next few weeks.
“Everything is moving smoothly as scheduled and as agreed upon by the Joint Military Committee, which met in Damascus last week following the congress of the Syrian-Lebanese Supreme Council on Monday during which President Bashar and his Lebanese counterpart agreed on full pullback of Syrian forces in Lebanon,” a statement broadcast by the TV station said here yesterday.
Informed sources said that Syria had already withdrawn around 50 percent of its troops in Lebanon to the Syrian side of the border and more troops will be retreated during the next few days. “More than 1,000 troops returned home late last night,” the same sources said.
Eyewitnesses said that all Syrian troops in northern Lebanon evacuated their posts on Friday and headed toward either to temporary posts in the Bekaa Valley or moved straight back home.
In Jdaidat Yabous, a Syrian border town located around 50 kilometers to the west of Damascus; a huge crowd of Syrians welcomed a convoy of returning soldiers. They danced, waved national flags, and showered the joyful soldiers with rice and flowers. Soldiers responded by flashing victory signs and holding high pictures of President Bashar.
Responding to mounting international pressure on Syria to pull out its troops from Lebanon following the Feb. 14 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Bashar pledged before Syrian Parliament last week that he would fully withdraw all his 14,000 troops from Lebanon as part of the implementation of the 1989 Taif Accord signed by warring Lebanese groups ending 15 years of civil war in their country.
Syria sent its troops to Lebanon in a bid to put an end to a fierce civil war there following appeals by the then-Lebanese government and some Christian parties. It, however, kept some 40,000 of its troops and military intelligence personnel to protect civil security and peace in its small neighbor.
In Beirut, pro-Syrian prime minister-designate Omar Karami — reappointed just 10 days after standing down in the face of massive public protests following Hariri’s murder — is still struggling to form a new government.
The opposition, which accuses the Lebanese regime and its political masters in Damascus of having a hand in Hariri’s killing, has so far rebuffed his calls for a national unity government.
More than 10,00O people holding colored pieces of cardboard formed a huge Lebanese flag in Beirut yesterday in another spirited tribute to Hariri.
— With input from agencies
