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US asks Syria to restrain Palestinian group
( 2001-08-29 09:51 ) (7 )

The United States has asked Syria to restrain the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, whose spokesman suggested on Monday that Arabs strike at US interests in retaliation for Israel's assassination of PFLP leader Abu Ali Mustafa.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said on Tuesday the United States contacted the Syrian government overnight and said it would hold Damascus responsible for the safety of Americans in the country.

PFLP spokesman Maher al-Taher said on Monday, "We ask the Arab world to hit American interests because the United States participates in the extermination of the Palestinian people." The PFLP has a large presence in the Syrian capital.

Boucher said: "We do take seriously the spokesman for the PFLP's plea for strikes against US interests. We're calling on the Syrian government to exercise restraint over groups that have a presence on Syrian territory.

"We are raising the spokesman's remarks with the Syrian government, noting we hold the Syrian government responsible for the safety and security of Americans in Syria."

He said the United States welcomed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's recent expression of support for a "just and comprehensive peace" in the Middle East.

He added, "We think such a position conveys on him certain responsibilities -- to exercise restraint where he has influence to prevent any further escalatory violence."

The Syrian government indicated on Tuesday that it was not in a mood to be sympathetic to the US request.

It said that Washington's bias toward Israel was harming US interests in the region and undermining its role as a broker of the peace process.

A senior Syrian official strongly criticized US President George W. Bush's Middle East policy, saying it was providing Israel with a political cover to continue what he called its daily military crimes against the Palestinians.

Boucher could not confirm that the US Embassy in Damascus had also conveyed a message from Israel asking Syria to restrain the guerrilla group Hizbollah in south Lebanon.

DIVIDED VILLAGE

The director-general of the Israeli Defense Ministry, Amos Yaron, said last Friday he asked the United States on Friday to assure Assad it did not seek escalation on the Lebanese border, where Hizbollah has moved close to Israeli forces near the divided village of Ghajar.

A senior Israeli official now visiting Washington said he had asked Washington to send a similar message.

Boucher said that the United States had consistently raised its concerns about the Israeli-Lebanese border.

"We call on all of the parties who have influence in that area to exercise it, to make sure that the place does not escalate," the US spokesman added.

Hizbollah, which attacked Israeli forces in Lebanon for years until they withdrew last year, has taken up positions just hundreds of yards (metres) from Israeli troops at the edge of Ghajar, which spans the line marking the Israeli pullout.

When the United Nations drew the withdrawal line, it assigned the northern two-thirds of Ghajar to Lebanon, and the rest to the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights.

On Sunday, Hizbollah claimed all of the village as Lebanese territory and said it was ready to fight for it.