Syria might go to war to stop the Israeli-Lebanese troop withdrawal agreement, Syria’s foreign minister hinted in remarks published Friday. He labled the pact ‘more dangerous’ than the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty and vowed Syria would never drop its opposition.
‘Syria’s essential condition for the withdrawal of its troops from Lebanon is the creation of national equilibrium in Lebanon,’ Syrian Foreign Minister Abdel Halim Khaddam said in an interview published by the Lebanese weekly magazine An Nahar Arab and International.
‘If Egypt shared common borders with Syria, a war would have erupted between us due to the (1979) Camp David (Israeli-Egyptian) treaty. Much more links us to Lebanon,’ Khaddam said. ‘And we will use all which is in our capacity to thwart this agreement — an accord more dangerous than Camp David.’
Israel and Lebanon signed an agreement Tuesday to withdraw Israel’s 30,000 occupation troops, but the pullout is conditional on a parallel withdrawal of Syria’s 40,000 troops.
Khaddam’s remarks came as the Lebanese state-run news agency said the Beirut government had asked the Soviet Union for help in convincing Syria to withdraw from Lebanon. The Soviet Union is Syria’s chief arms supplier.
In an interview with Radio Monte Carlo, Khaddam repeated Syria’s refusal to receive Habib and said Syria’s opposition to the Israeli-Lebanese accord would ‘never change, not in a week, not in a month.’
Syria’s state-run radio said the Israeli-Lebanese agreement would ‘sanctify’ the Israeli occupation of south Lebanon, which would be used to launch attacks on Syria.
On Thursday, Syria vowed it would never turn over the Lebanese territory it occupied to Israel or the Christian militia forces allied with Lebanese President Amin Gemayal.
