AN OPPORTUNITY TOO GOOD TO BE MISSED:

Arab Foreign Ministers Urge Syria to Get Out of Lebanon (Greg LaMotte, 03 March 2005, VOA News)

Arab League foreign ministers met in Cairo in preparation for an Arab summit to be held later this month in Algeria. Although the topic was not on their agenda, the foreign ministers spent much of the day discussing the continued presence of Syrian troops in Lebanon. The foreign ministers expressed solidarity with Syria, but also indicated the need for Damascus to pull its troops out of Lebanon.

Arab foreign ministers have urged Syria to fully implement a 1989 accord and pull its troops out of Lebanon. And, apparently Syria is ready to comply, with some conditions.

According to a senior official with the Arab League, who asked not to be identified, Syria is demanding that peace talks resume with Israel before a troop pullout occurs.

Baby Assad is exactly inept enough, and hopefully Ariel Sharon smart enough, to make Israel the effective liberator of Lebanon. Israel should leap on this opportunity and say that it considers the liberty of its Lebanese neighbors important enough to reopen negotiations with Syria--negotiations that will include liberalizing the Syrian political system in the same way that every one of the surrounding states has.

MORE:
Jordanian FM heads to Israel for talks (Randa Habib, March 03, 2005, Lebanon Daily Star)

Jordanian Foreign Minister Hani Mulki told AFP on Wednesday he was heading to Israel this weekend on the first such visit in four years to "bring back warmth" to relations between the two neighbors.

Mulki, who will meet Israeli counterpart Silvan Shalom on Saturday and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Sunday, said his talks will focus on how "to bring the peace treaty and the agreements between Jordan back into action."

"I would like to see how to push them forward for the reasons envisaged in the peace treaty," which Jordan signed with Israel in 1994, he added.

Mulki's visit, the first by a foreign minister since 2001, comes two weeks after Amman returned its ambassador to Tel Aviv following a four-year hiatus over Israel's actions against the Palestinian uprising.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 3, 2005 12:42 PM