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 other diplomatic activity aimed at securing a Syrian pullout, U.S. Middle East envoy Philip Habib arrived in Egypt after visiting Saudi Arabia, Syria’s most important financial backer.
In Rome, Lebanese Foreign Minister Elie Salem met with Italian Foreign Minister Emilio Colombo on European cooperation in bringing about a Syrian withdrawal.
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.
Habib, whose request to meet with Syrian leaders was rebuffed Tuesday, returned to the Middle East Wednesday to try again to negotiate a full withdrawal of foreign troops from Lebanon.
‘We shall never change, not in a week, not in a month. We will talk about nothing but banning the implementation of the agreement,’ Khaddam, one of Syria’s most outspoken leaders, told Monte Carlo Radio Friday.
‘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 in a separate interview with a Lebanese weekly magazine.
‘And we will use all which is in our capacity to thwart this agreement — an accord more dangerous than Camp David,’ he said in an apparent Syrian threat of military force to block the agreement.
Khaddam rejected recent statements made by U.S. officials saying Syria might enter the peace negotiations, which appeared to cement Syria’s unwillingness to withdraw its troops.
Khaddam said the Israeli-Lebanese agreement infringes on Lebanese security by prohibiting Beirut from establishing a modern air defense system or deploying forces in the strategic Barouk Mountains.
