Posted 24 February 2005 - 03:30 PM
The Syrians already succumbed to the pressure. The whole thing reminds me of Archduke Franz Ferdinand's assassination where Austrians demanded complete access for an investigation:
Syria Committed to Withdraw From Lebanon
By ALBERT AJI, Associated Press Writer
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Syria said Thursday it will begin withdrawing its troops in Lebanon closer to its own border, a move designed to blunt international demands for a complete pullout and to ease a groundswell of anti-Syrian sentiment.
Both Syria and Lebanon's Damascus-allied government gave no timetable, indicating the troops would not leave Lebanon at this stage and that the withdrawal toward the border would be on their own terms.
The two countries don't want to be seen to be caving in to a U.N. Security Council resolution in September that effectively called on Syria to withdraw all its forces from Lebanon and to end its political interference.
While the redeployment promised Thursday falls well short of U.N. demands, which were endorsed by President Bush, it was still a significant attempt to ease pressure that has been building since the Feb. 14 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut.
There was no sign Thursday night of any movement among Syria's 15,000 troops in Lebanon. At a Syrian intelligence post at Ramlet el-Baida, on the southern edge of Beirut, a gun-wielding plainclothes Syrian agent stood outside one office, while another paced back and forth. Along the Beirut-Damascus highway near the mountain town of Aley, Syrian soldiers collected their dinners from a truck.
"The decision to withdraw has been taken," Lebanese Defense Minister Abdul-Rahim Murad told the local New TV channel. "What remains is the exact timing."
A pullback could start as early as Saturday, said one senior Lebanese security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Murad said Lebanese and Syrian military officers were meeting to define "the dates and the way" of the withdrawal. He stressed it was in line with the Arab-brokered Taif accord of 1989, which provides for Syrian soldiers to be stationed in the eastern Bekaa Valley near the border.
Israel, Syria's arch foe, welcomed the announcement. Egypt said that Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa would be coming to Cairo at an unspecified date to discuss the issue. Egypt sent its intelligence chief to Damascus on Wednesday for talks on the matter.
A U.S. official in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States has not been notified about a withdrawal, and it remains to be seen how many troops would be removed from Lebanon and when the pullout would occur.
A team dispatched by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to investigate the Hariri assassination arrived in Beirut late Thursday. The three-member team, headed by Ireland's Deputy Police Commissioner Peter Fitzgerald, was expected to inspect the central Beirut scene of the bombing and to meet with Lebanese investigators.
Lebanon has rejected the international inquiry that the United States and France have demanded, but it has expressed a willingness to cooperate with foreign investigators.
The killing of Hariri, who was credited with rebuilding Lebanon after the 1975-90 civil war, provoked mass demonstrations against Syria. Lebanese opposition leaders accused the government and Syria of playing a role in the assassination — a charge strongly denied by both governments. The opposition has now pledged to bring down the government in a no-confidence motion in parliament on Monday.
Some opposition figures dismissed Thursday's withdrawal statement as vague. Samir Franjieh said the announcement did not refer to a complete pullout from Lebanon.
It was not clear whether the withdrawal would mean the removal of the Syrian intelligence officers whom the opposition accuses of meddling in Lebanese politics.
Syrian troops are currently based on the mountains overlooking the Mediterranean coast to the west and in the eastern Bekaa Valley. They also have positions along the north Lebanese coast around Tripoli, the country's second-largest city.
The bulk of the Syrian garrison, which once numbered 35,000, has been withdrawn from the coastal areas in redeployments since 2000. The last withdrawal was in December when Syrian security agents vacated posts at Beirut International Airport and in the north of the country.
The Bekaa is of strategic military importance to Syria, which is technically at war with Israel. In 1982, Israeli troops invading Lebanon drove the Syrian army out of large swaths of the valley and set up bases on Syria's western frontier. The Lebanese border is only a 20-minute drive from Damascus, the Syrian capital.
Syria, which sent its army into Lebanon in 1976 amid a civil war, has for many years pledged to implement that Taif agreement. But significant parts of the accord have never been implemented: a withdrawal of all Syria forces to the Bekaa — which the accord scheduled for the early 1990s, and a later total pullout from Lebanon.
In its statement Thursday, the Syrian Foreign Ministry said its soldiers would not all leave Lebanon immediately because "speeding up the pace of withdrawals requires enabling the Lebanese army and internal security forces to fill the vacuum that could take place in a way that does not undermine the security of Lebanon and Syria."
The Lebanese government has also said that it could be destabilizing to implement the U.N. resolution calling for a total Syrian withdrawal.
