Pressure grows on Syria to quit Lebanon

Syria has made no move to withdraw its troops from Lebanon as demanded by the United Nations after the assassination Monday of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Though the Bush administration has not overtly accused Syria of involvement in the deaths of Hariri and 16 others, U.S. officials have pointed to the attack as a sign that Syria is a source of trouble in a region where democracy is growing.

Thursday at the White House, President Bush said he didn’t know “yet” whether Syria was involved in Hariri’s assassination. But Bush said Syria was “out of step” with the rest of the Middle East. In the face of increasing US pressure on Syria following Monday’s killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut, Iran and Syria declared Thursday that they would form a “common front to face threats.”

The joint announcement, which came after a meeting in Tehran between Iranian Vice-President Muhammed Reza Aref and Syrian Prime Minister Naji al-Otari, “coincides with a sharp increase in regional tensions following the assassination of [Hariri] by a suicide car-bomber on Monday,” reports the Australian.

In response to the criminal and terrorist policy of the Lebanese and Syrian authorities, the Lebanese opposition declares the democratic and peaceful intifada (uprising) for independence,�? said leading opposition figure Samir Frangieh. “We demand the departure of the illegitimate regime,�? Frangieh said, reading a final statement at the home of Druze leader Walid Jumblatt after an opposition meeting in a Beirut hotel.

Jumblatt did not attend the meeting, for days after the assassination of former premier Rafiq Hariri, for “security reasons,�? aides said. The meeting was attended by more than 40 of the parliament’s 128 members, as well as dozens of political activists.

The opposition called for “the formation of an interim government as a supreme national necessity to protect the Lebanese people and ensure the immediate and complete pullout of Syrian forces from Lebanon ahead of free and honest legislative elections.�?
Hariri’s killing in Beirut on Monday sparked anti-Syrian fury among many Lebanese and renewed world pressure on Damascus to loosen its political grip and remove its troops from Lebanon.

Khazen, a Maronite Christian, became the first minister to quit because of the assassination and said he had done so because the Syrian-backed government was unable to “remedy the dangerous situation in the country. “There is no substitute for national dialogue on the basis of the Taif agreement,” he said, referring to the deal that
ended the 1975-1990 civil war and committed Syria to moving the troops it keeps in Lebanon to the eastern Bekaa Valley.

Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and figures from the disparate opposition movement blamed the government and its Syrian backers for Hariri’s death and called for its resignation. More than 40 of parliament’s 128 deputies and dozens of opposition activists called on their fellow citizens to join a “democratic and peaceful uprising for independence … in response to the criminal and terrorist policy of the Lebanese and Syrian authorities.”

The opposition has accused the government and its political masters in Damascus of having a hand in the massive bomb blast that killed former premier Rafiq Hariri and 14 others on Monday. Even before the opposition forces issued their call, the first crack appeared in the government lines, with the resignation of Tourism Minister Farid al-Khazen. Considered loyal to pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud, Khazen said “the current government is incapable of resolving the dangerous situation in the country.” For his part, Interior Minister Suleiman Franjieh took issue with those accusing the government of complicity in Hariri’s death.