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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| General scoffs at media claims on Shebaa map |
| 2006-04-12 |
| Lebanon's representative on the United Nations team that demarcated the Blue Line in the South has dismissed media reports about Syria's endorsement of a supposedly new map of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights showing the adjacent and disputed Shebaa Farms region as part of Syria rather than Lebanon In a statement released Tuesday, Brigadier General Amin Hoteit downplayed the importance of Syria's having signed onto the map released by the UN Disengagement Observer Force, stressing that "the map is not new. It's 32 years old. "This is an attempt by agents acting against Lebanon and Syria to change what was agreed upon in the dialogue and to expand the gap between Lebanon and Syria," Hoteit said in the statement. Media reports recently claimed that Syria endorsed a map of the Golan Heights released by UNDOF before the publication of the UN Security Council resolution that extended the term of this force. The media reported that the new map was enclosed with Resolution 1648 after being enclosed with the UN secretary-general's report, on which the extension was based. Hoteit said the map, revised in December 2005 and released by the maps department of the UN in the Golan Heights, holds no such endorsement by Syria. He added that Syria had no role in drawing the map initially. |
| Posted by:Fred |