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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Assistant SecState Welch Insists Syrians Or Iranians Arming Hizbullah |
| 2007-04-19 |
| Syria or Iran continues to provide weapons to Hizbullah in Lebanon in violation of a UN arms embargo, a senior US official said Wednesday. "The border between Leba-non and Syria remains highly porous," Assistant Secretary of State David Welch told a Congressional panel. Welch said that Washington agreed with a recent report by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon asserting "serious breaches" of the arms embargo imposed under a Security Council resolution which ended last year's summer war with Israel. "It is clear in [Ban's] judgment, and it is clear in our own independent [judgment] that Hizbullah continues to rearm and we can see no other source for such assistance than Syria or Iran," said Welch, the top State Department official for the Middle East. "We are encouraging the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL to take a more assertive role in stopping smuggling," he said, referring to an expanded United Nations peacekeeping force deployed in Lebanon following the July-August war. Welch accused Hizbullah, which is also a political movement in Lebanon, of campaigning to overthrow the elected government of Premier Fouad Siniora, with Syria's backing. He said one aim was to thwart the establishment of a UN-backed special tribunal to investigate the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. Welch said that if Lebanon is unable to formally endorse the creation of the special tribunal due to opposition from Hizbullah and other pro-Syrian parties in parliament, the US could back unilateral action by the UN. "If the Lebanese government is unable to approve the agreement, the [Security] Council may need to consider other mechanisms for establishing the Tribunal, including under UN Security Council Chapter 7 authority," he said. Chapter 7 of the UN Charter gives the Security Council the power to impose mandatory actions on member states. For a senior State Department guy, an explicit threat of "going Chapter 7, someday, I don't know when" is some serious saber-rattling. Welch was speaking after the Security Council on Tuesday asked Ban to send an independent mission to investigate reports of illegal arms movements across the Lebanese-Syrian border. The council expressed its "serious concern at mounting information by Israel and another state" of arms smuggling across the border in violation of UN resolution 1701. |
| Posted by:mrp |
| #2 Meh. Where's that "Master of the Obvious" graphic? |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2007-04-19 16:03 |
| #1 The countries involved will continue and accelerate the delivery of arms, and when figure they are about done, which will be timed to be five minutes before the boom comes down a year from now, they will suddenly get "compliant", and after that they will trickle stuff in as necessary. This is basically pointless in my mind. |
| Posted by: gorb 2007-04-19 15:54 |