Albright backs Barak, calls on Syria to stop Hizbullah attacks
Special to World Tribune.com
MIDDLE EAST NEWSLINE
Thursday, February 10, 2000
JERUSALEM [MENL] -- Despite Israel's air strikes into Lebanon, Israeli Prime
Minister Ehud Barak continued to urge Syria to resume peace talks.
"The option of resuming talks with the Syrians is still open as far as
we are concerned," a spokesman for the prime minister said on Tuesday.
Barak has sent messages to Syrian Prime Minister Hafez Assad through
United States envoys that Israel is ready to resume peace negotiations but
that Syria must reign in Hizbullah.
U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright Wednesday endorsed the
Israeli call to Damascus to stop Hizbullah attacks in Lebanon. She said the
purpose of the Israeli air strikes in Lebanon was to send a message to
Hizbullah, not to derail the Israeli-Syrian peace talks.
"The Israelis have hit infrastructure and the power plants. I don't
think they are going after civilians but they did want to send a very strong
signal. Many of their .., a number of their military have died as a result
of attacks by the Hizbullah that have been launched out of villages which is
something that is not part of the inderstandings of 1996, "Albright said.
Damascus and Beirut criticized Israel for breaking the 1996 agreements
and in a joint statement issued by Syria and Lebanon on Tuesday called for
the reconvening of the Nakura international monitoring committee on Lebanon.
But the statement called for civilians "on both sides" to be left out of the
conflict.
A senior Israeli researcher at Tel Aviv's Jaffee Center for Strategic
Studies said that it's not in the Syrian or Lebanese interest to exert more
control over Hizbullah but Syria does not want war.
"The Syrians don't want a process of deterioration that will lead to war
between them and Israel. They know their military situation is not good"
Brig.-Gen. Shlomo Brom [res.] told Israel Radio on Wednesday . "I don't
think that the Syrians have an interest in the cessation of all Hizbullah
activities in South Lebanon. This is essentially the main pressure card in
the negotiations with Israel."
The Kuwaiti daily al-Rai al-Am, Monday quoted Israeli sources as saying
that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has presented to the U.S. a new
proposal on a withdrawal from the Golan Heights in an effort to resume talks
with Syria.
The sources, quoting senior Israeli officials, said that the new
proposal is more detailed than what had been proposed previously, but it
does not comprise details of a border demarcation with Syria or mention a
withdrawal to the June 4, 1967 border.
Thursday, February 10, 2000
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