SYRIA: European Union Foreign policy chied Javier Solana in Damascus for talks on Lebanon and Iraq

Record ID: 276271

  • Title: SYRIA: European Union Foreign policy chied Javier Solana in Damascus for talks on Lebanon and Iraq
  • Date: 14th March 2007
  • Summary: (BN08) DAMASCUS, SYRIA (14 MARCH 2007) (REUTERS) EUROPEAN UNION FOREIGN POLICY CHIEF JAVIER SOLANA ARRIVING AT THE SYRIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY
  • Embargoed: 29th March 2007 13:00
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  • Reuters ID: LVAA1PURS6OKEGAWLYBELYO498X6
  • Story Text: The European Union's foreign policy chief urges Syria to do more to help ease tensions in Lebanon and Iraq during a visit that ends two-year freeze on high-level EU contacts with Damascus. European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana arrived in Damascus on Tuesday (March 14) for talks with Syrian leaders including President Bashar al-Assad.
    His talks were expected to covers such topics as suspected arms smuggling into Lebanon and the possible creation of a tribunal to try suspects behind the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.
    Solana has already visited Lebanon and Saudi Arabia on his three-country tour and his visit to Syria was the first for two years. It went ahead after France dropped its objections to EU contacts with Damascus which a U.N. inquiry has implicated in the Hariri killing.
    After meeting Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem and Vice-President Farouq Al-Shara, the EU's top diplomat will urge Assad to do more to help ease tension in Lebanon and Iraq.
    Syria -- which denies involvement in Hariri's killing -- is seen as key to unlocking the four-month-old political deadlock between the anti-Syrian majority in Lebanon and rival factions including its Hezbollah allies.
    EU countries make up the bulk of the 12,000-strong U.N. force on the southern Lebanon border that was reinforced after last year's war between Israel and Hezbollah. They want peace to be secured so they can start sending their troops home.
    EU officials played down expectations of a breakthrough during Solana's Damascus visit.
    Syrian officials sat at the same table as U.S. representatives at this weekend's Baghdad conference aimed at finding ways out of the chaos in Iraq, and Solana will press Saudi-backed calls for Damascus to cooperate there, too.
    Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Iraqi officials say Syria has been hosting large numbers of former intelligence operatives and officers in the now defunct Iraqi army. No one doubts that that former officer core has links to the insurgents in Iraq.
    However, Damascus has set a price for its cooperation, including seeking the support of Washington for its campaign to regain the Golan Heights occupied by Israel since 1967.
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