1 - 7 March 2001
Issue No.523
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 1 - 7 March 2001 Issue No.523 |
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Peace takes a back seat
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad has reasserted his country' s commitment to the peace process in accordance with the 1991 Middle East Peace Conference in Madrid, the United Nations resolutions and the principle of exchanging peace for land, Syrian officials said.
The president put his case during his meeting on Monday with US Secretary of State Colin Powell. The three-hour talks addressed a number of key issues, including the pursuit of peace and possible ways to revive stalled Syrian-Israeli peace talks, the Iraqi sanctions and the issue of bringing the Syrian pipeline exporting Iraqi oil under UN auspices.
The diplomats said the talks focused on the US sanctions against Iraq. Washington believes Syria, which is seeking a UN Security Council seat next year, will comply with UN sanctions banning oil imports from Iraq without UN approval, a senior US official said. Syria is believed to be importing some 100,000 barrels of Iraqi oil a day.
Following his talks with Al-Assad, Powell appeared confident that Syria would consent to place its pipeline under UN supervision.
According to a US official accompanying Powell, the US secretary of state revealed on the flight between Saudi Arabia and Syria that Arab officials he had met in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia had said they were worried about the severe ban imposed on Iraq since 1990.
Powell said he would call on US President Geroge W Bush to reduce these sanctions and make them more acceptable to the Arab world. He also said Kuwaiti leaders he met had agreed that the sanctions needed some modifications to achieve their core objectives.
Syrian presidency spokesman Gebran Kourieh said after the meeting that Al-Assad had called for the US to play an effective and impartial role in the peace process, noting that achieving peace was the sole guarantee for security and stability.
The peace talks, which opened in 1991, are deadlocked over the future of the Golan Heights, which were captured by Israel from Syria in 1967. Syria has insisted on a full Israeli withdrawal from this part of its territory.
Before the meeting, diplomatic sources said Powell and Al-Assad would also tackle a US request on ways to contain attacks by the Lebanese resistance against Israel. The latest Hizbullah operation, which took place two weeks ago against an Israeli Army unit in the Shebaa Farms on the Lebanese-Israeli border, killed one Israeli soldier and wounded two others.
In Syria, just as in Lebanon, a strong impression prevailed that Powell' s visit to the region proved the US was less interested in the Arab-Israeli conflict than in the Iraqi issue and "the demands for Arabs to endorse the US position," as was pointed out in the Syrian daily Al-Baath.
In one of its editorials, Al-Baath criticised the absence of change in US policy towards the Arab-Israeli conflict, as was clearly apparant in Powell' itinerary and statements.
The newspaper added: "Powell himself affirmed that the conflict came in second place, and that Washington's main priority was to contain some countries of the region, especially Iraq and Iran."
While Powell' s visit to the region has just ended, preparations were underway in Lebanon to welcome his assistant, Edward Walker, amid reinforced security measures and the protests of a disenchanted public opinion that Lebanon -- one of the main parties in the Arab-Israeli conflict -- had been excluded from Powell' s trip.
Walker will arrive on Friday in Lebanon, where he will hold talks with the Lebanese Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Walker will not meet President Emile Lahoud, who will be visiting the Vatican over the weekend.
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