Syria: We Did Not Agree To UN Border Guards
Ryan R. Jones - All Headline News Middle East Correspondent Jerusalem, Israel (AHN) - Syria on Saturday denied that it had acceded to a request by Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi to deploy hundreds of Italian troops along the Lebanon-Syria border to prevent arms shipments to Hezbollah. Following a series of phone calls with Syrian President Bashar Assad, Prodi told reporters, "The Syrian president has welcomed my proposal to send border guards from the European Union to control the passage of weapons between Syria and Lebanon." Prodi said the border monitors would be unarmed and not in uniform, but would be sufficiently equipped to enforce the arms embargo stipulated in UN Security Council Resolution 1701. The Italian said he was well pleased with Syria's readiness to cooperate with the international community. But just hours later, Syria's officials news agency SANA reported that Damascus had agreed to no such thing. "There is no truth to news reports of Syria's acceptance of European border guards to monitor the border from Lebanon," according to SANA. Last month, Assad said Syria would view the deployment of an international force on his country's western border as a "hostile act." Syria, along with Iran, is accused of being Hezbollah's primary source of arms. It is believed that hundreds of Russian-made advanced anti-tank weapons used by Hezbollah during the conflict passed through Syrian hands. |
