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Syria Says Will Close Border With Lebanon If UN Troops Deploy
2006-08-23
www.haaretz.com/ hasen/spages/ 754064.html
HELSINKI, Finland - Syria has threatened to close its border with Lebanon if United Nations peacekeepers are deployed along the border, Finland's foreign minister said Wednesday.
"They will close their borders for all traffic in case UN troops will be deployed along the Lebanon-Syria border," Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja said after meeting his Syrian counterpart, Walid Moallem, in Helsinki. Finland holds the rotating presidency of the European Union.
"This closing of the border would certainly have negative consequences for the people living in the region," Tuomioja told reporters after his meeting with Moallem. The Syrian foreign minister was not present at the news conference.
Closing the border would have an adverse affect on Lebanon's economy.
In an interview with Dubai Television, Syria's President Bashar Assad rejected any deployment of UN troops along the Syrian border with Lebanon, saying he would consider the deployment of troops along the border a "hostile" move toward Syria, which would create animosity between the two countries.
"First, this means creating a hostile condition between Syria and Lebanon," Assad told Dubai Television, according to excerpts released by the TV station ahead of the interview's airing late Wednesday. "Second, it is a hostile move toward Syria and naturally it will create problems."
Tuomioja described EU-Syria relations as "quite cool and distant" and stressed the 25-nation bloc expects Syria to comply with UN resolutions.
"They wish to see better relations with the EU," he said. "From our side we made clear what the EU expects from Syria, and that we will be watching them."
Source: IMRA – Independent Media Review and Analysis
