posted July 14, 2006 03:56 PM
Jul 12, 12:18 PM EDTSyrian Diplomat Blames Israel for Violence
By HAMZA HENDAWI
Associated Press Writer
AP Photo/BASSEM TELLAWI
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DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) -- Syria's vice president blamed Israel for the escalating violence in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories Wednesday and denied that his country had a role in the abductions of Israeli soldiers.
Farouk al-Sharaa said Israel was to blame for the seizures of the soldiers, two of whom were captured Wednesday by Hezbollah militants who crossed into Israel from Lebanon. A soldier was also taken by the Palestinian militant group Hamas last month.
"For sure, the occupation (of the Palestinian territories) is the cause provoking both Lebanese and Palestinian people, and that's why there is Lebanese and Palestinian resistance," he said.
Some of Hamas' top leaders live in Syria, putting Damascus at the center of blame by Israel and the United States.
Al-Sharaa denied his country had a role in either abduction.
"It's up to the resistance - both the Lebanese and the Palestinian - to decide what they are doing and why are they fighting," he told reporters in Damascus.
Al-Sharaa made the comments at a news conference with Ali Larijani, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, whose country is also a top backer of Hamas and Hezbollah.
"When the Zionist entity attacks and slaughters the Palestinian people ... resistance is necessary," Larijani said.
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The capture of the two soldiers Wednesday triggered an Israeli assault with warplanes, tanks and gunboats against southern Lebanon. Israel has already been waging an offensive in the Gaza Strip aimed at winning the freedom of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who was seized June 25.
Soon after Shalit's abduction, Israeli warplanes buzzed low over a summer home of Syrian President Bashar Assad in an attempt to pressure Damascus to secure his release.
The Arab League planned an urgent meeting on the crisis Thursday amid "fears of widening of tension and possible Israeli strike against Syria," a senior league official in Cairo said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
In Cairo, a top U.S. diplomat accused Syria of interfering to prevent a solution to Shalit's abduction.
"We are dismayed that so far there are some who are intending to interfere, to prevent a solution," David C. Welch, the assistant secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, said.
He called the Hezbollah capture of the two Israeli soldiers a "very dangerous escalation" that complicated efforts for Shalit's release.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak also indirectly criticized Syria, suggesting it disrupted his country's attempts to mediate a deal for Shalit's release.
Hamas was subjected to "counter-pressures by other parties, which I don't want to name but which cut the road in front of the Egyptian mediation and led to the failure of the deal after it was about to be concluded," Mubarak said in an interview with Egypt's Al-Massai newspaper.
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posted July 14, 2006 03:56 PM
