Kuwait Calls on Syria and Lebanon to Implement Resolution 1559

Beirut, 20 Oct 04, 09:43

Kuwait's foreign minister has urged Damascus and Beirut to comply with UN Security Council Resolution 1559 that calls for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Lebanon, in remarks published on Monday. "I hope that wisdom will push the Syrian and Lebanese leaderships to deal positively with Resolution 1559," Sheikh Mohammad al-Sabah told the London-based Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat. "It is an international resolution and we all should respect it. "Syria realizes the importance of this resolution ... Syria said it respects the resolution, but the issue now is in translating this respect to acts on the ground," Sheikh Mohammad said. Kuwait's chief diplomat, however, recalled that Syrian forces in Lebanon were not occupation forces as they were initially deployed under an Arab League decision to help stop the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war. Sheikh Mohammad said the resolution also applied to the Israeli presence in the disputed Shabaa Farms border region of southern Lebanon. "Resolution 1559 is now part of the international legality and we call on all to respect this legality," said the foreign minister. "We in Kuwait are aware of the special Syrian-Lebanese relationship, but we believe the resolution must be implemented within the framework of this special relationship," he said. Kuwait's Al-Siyassah newspaper, known for its anti-Syrian stance, slammed Syria on Sunday for failing to withdraw its troops from Lebanon and warned that the Damascus regime should learn the lesson of Saddam Hussein's ouster in Iraq. Syria, which joined the 1991 Gulf War to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi occupation, opposed last year's US-British invasion of Iraq which ousted Saddam and indirectly criticized Arab states backing it, mainly Kuwait. But Syrian-Kuwaiti ties at the official level were not disrupted by the row over Iraq, although the Kuwaiti press has repeatedly attacked Damascus. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad paid a two-day official visit to Kuwait in June and his talks focused on improving political and economic cooperation between the two Arab states.(AFP)