[11/March/2010]
UNITED NATIONS, March 11 (Saba) -- Syria on Thursday asked Secretary-General not to mention its name again in its periodic reports on the implementation of Security Council ceasefire resolution 1701 that put an end to the war between Israel and Hezbollah in the summer of 2006, Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) has reported.

"It has become unacceptable to continue to mention Syria in those reports," Syrian Ambassador to the UN Bashar Ja'afari wrote in identical letters to Ban and the council president, Gabon.

Ja'afari assured Ban that relations with Syria and Lebanon, following Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri's visit to Syria last December, will grow stronger in the coming months.

He said that visit "marked a historic shift in Syrian-Lebanese relations. Discussions were held on all aspects of relations between the fraternal countries and means of enhancing (them) in all fields. We are certain to see sustained efforts in that regard in the coming weeks and months, particularly by the (two) countries' Governments." Responding to Ban's criticism in the report for the delay in delineating the border between the two countries, Ja'afari said it is a bilateral matter in which "no party has the right to interfere." He even blamed the UN for such a delay.

"The real obstacle to (that) border delineation is continued Israeli occupation of the occupied Syrian Golan and the Shab'a Farms," in blatant violation of all UN resolutions. "If the United Nations is committed to the implementation of its resolutions, it should bring pressure to bear on Israel to end its occupation and take the necessary measures in that regard," he said. He added, however, that this issue is one of a number that the two Governments intend to address in the near future.

Ja'afari also said Ban's reference in his report to continued Israeli violations of Lebanese sovereignty and his call for their cessation without taking "effective measures on the ground is an ineffective and hollow gesture. The Security Council must take practical steps to prohibit and put a stop to those violations in accordance with and in implementation of resolution 1701." Syria, he added, finds it "odd" that the report insists on including Israeli claims about arms smuggling across the Syrian-Lebanese border.

"Those claims are fabrications that have been disproved by statements from senior Lebanese officials and reports of the Lebanon Independent Border Assessment Team," he insisted. Those "false claims," he argued, are designed to provide cover for Israel's daily violations of Lebanese sovereignty, and the continued inclusion of those claims in the report helps Israel to achieve that aim. It would have been more appropriate, he suggested, for the report to unequivocally condemn Israel for its violations of Lebanese sovereignty, including the employment of "large numbers of spies whose aim is to undermine the security of Lebanon." Ja'afari also criticized Ban for repeatedly including the Israeli allegations against Syria in the various reports without once giving the same consideration to Syria's denials of those allegations.

Saba