Saudis Call for Syria Withdrawal From Lebanon

Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister Walid al-Moalim was set to arrive in Moscow on Friday for talks with Russian officials on a possible U.N. resolution urging Syria to pull out, Russia's Foreign Ministry said.

"The role played by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the (Arab League) secretary-general is to avoid situations that will be imposed on us," Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Kerbi told reporters in Cairo after the Arab League meeting.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said he had long encouraged Assad to withdraw. "I have been talking to him about the withdrawal for two years because I was afraid of the external pressure," he told reporters Wednesday. "Now I hope the issue will pass peacefully."

The Syrian troops were originally deployed during Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war -- ostensibly as peacekeepers -- and Syria has held sway over Lebanese politics ever since.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia are trying to get Syria to carry out the 1989 Taif Accord, which called on it to gradually make a full pullout from Lebanon -- but to start it immediately and finish the withdrawal by April.

The Arab-brokered accord is named after the Saudi city of Taif, where it was signed, and Saudi officials played a key role in sealing it. It required Syria to redeploy troops to eastern Lebanon, near the Syrian border, and then negotiate a full withdrawal with the Lebanese government.

Syria never complied. But under growing pressure said last month it is willing to do so, promising to move troops closer to its border. But it hasn't yet acted.

Assad, in interviews with international media, has given varying estimates for the timing of a withdrawal, from less than two months to at least a year or not until Mideast peace is achieved.

Assad told Time magazine the troops would be out "maybe in the next few months. Not after that." In a separate interview published Monday in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Assad said withdrawal would require "serious guarantees. In one word: peace."

In Beirut, several hundred opposition supporters marched Thursday in the funeral of the 18th victim of the Feb. 14 bomb blast that killed Hariri and tore through his guards and bystanders. They said they were prepared to resume at any time the huge protests that brought the Lebanese government down.

"People are feeling the power they have," said Henri Helou, an opposition lawmaker in the funeral procession. "If they gather in force, they can get what they want."