The UN Security Council pressed Lebanon on Wednesday to hold parliamentary elections on schedule and welcomed "noticeable progress" in Syria's withdrawal, but said all UN demands had not yet been met. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has sent a team to verify the recent withdrawal of Syrian troops and intelligence officials, who dominated Lebanon for 29 years. In February, Syria had a force of 14,000 in the country but agreed to pull it out after mass protests in Beirut and international pressure. The council's statement, read by Danish Ambassador Ellen Loj, this month's president, "acknowledged" Syrian statements that its forces had withdrawn. But it said there had been no progress on other provisions of its Resolution 1559, adopted last Sept. 2, that called for the disarmament of militia so the Beirut government could control all its territory. "The Security Council welcomes that the parties concerned have made significant and noticeable progress toward implementing some of the provisions contained in Resolution 1559," Loj said at a formal meeting. Annan has sent another team to help Lebanon with election arrangements, due on May 29, the first since the Syrian withdrawal. The council said any delay would "contribute to exacerbating further political divisions in Lebanon and threaten the security, stability and prosperity of the country."
The council's statement did not mention warning shots fired several hours earlier to ward off the UN verification team surveying abandoned Syria bases in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. The shots were fired when the team drove toward a post for the Syrian-backed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, which refused to let them in. "It never came up," said Algerian Ambassador Abdallah Baali.
Annan earlier on Wednesday "deplored" the incident, saying he expected the Lebanese government to ensure the safety of the mission. "Our position is that such behavior is unacceptable," Syria's UN ambassador, Fayssal Mekdad, told reporters. "Everyone in Lebanon should facilitate the work of the verification team. Syria has nothing to hide." The council's statement took nearly all day to negotiate because of the insistence of Algeria, its only Arab member, that a reference be made on the need to implement all resolutions on the Middle East, a reference to Israel's occupation of the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza.