United States Needs to Revise its Position on Syria

Arab League calls on US to stop blaming Syria


Arab League assistant secretary general Ahmed Ben Helli gestures during his press conference at the Iraqi foreign ministry in Baghdad in November 2005. The Arab League has called on the United States to "revise its position" after its ambassador to the United Nations held Syria partly responsible for a crisis over a captive Israeli soldier.(AFP/File/Ali Al Saadi)

July 1, 2006

CAIRO (AFP) - The Arab League has called on the United States to "revise its position" after its ambassador to the United Nations held Syria partly responsible for a crisis over a captive Israeli soldier.

"The United States, as a large power and a permanent member of the Security Council, must revise its position and assume its responsibilities with regard to international law," the 22-member bloc's assistant secretary general, Ahmed Ben Helli, told reporters on Saturday.

Ben Helli called on Washington not to "stir up these questions because it is the Palestinians who are subjected to the aggression."

During a Security Council debate on the stand-off over the Israeli corporal held in the Gaza Strip, US ambassador John Bolton held Syria partly responsible for the raid in which the soldier was seized last Sunday because it hosts offices of Islamic militant group Hamas.

"We would not be where we are right now if it were not for Syria's support and harbouring of terrorists," Bolton said, calling on President Bashar al-Assad to hand over for prosecution Hamas's exiled supremo Khaled Meshaal.

Syrian ambassador Milad Attieh retorted at the meeting that the allegations were "baseless and unacceptable."

"The American delegate to the United Nations who is defending Israel in its aggression against the Palestinian people, has no right to level such accusations," the official SANA news agency quoted him as saying in his speech.

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Syria rejects US accusations