Bolton Faults Syria, Iran on Lebanon

Syrian president Bashar Assad , right, welcomes in Damascus on Sunday Oct. 29, 2006 Yevgeny Primakov, former Prime Minister of Russia who handed Assad an Arabic Version of his book titled "The Middle East, The known and the hidden" in which he talks about events in the Middle East politics. (AP Photo / Sana). (Sana - AP)

UNITED NATIONS -- U.S. Ambassador John Bolton accused Syria and Iran on Monday of trying to destabilize Lebanon's democratically elected government by violating a U.N. arms embargo.

Bolton stressed that Syria's obligations to respect a U.N. arms embargo authorized by the Security Council resolution that ended the 34-day Israeli-Hezbollah conflict in August "are particularly important as it is the one country other than Israel that borders Lebanon."

Syria and Iran are supporters of Hezbollah, providing weaponry, training and funding to the group.

He called on Syrian President Bashar Assad to abide by the commitment he made to Secretary-General Kofi Annan to support the resolution and the arms embargo.

In a speech to the U.N. Security Council, Bolton welcomed the Lebanese government's extension of its authority throughout the south of the country for the first time in almost 40 years and its deployment along the eastern part of the U.N.-drawn boundary with Israel and the border with Syria.

"Despite this advance, we continue to be concerned that Syria and Iran are actively trying to destabilize the democratically elected government of Lebanon ...," he said. "We call on Syria and Iran to abide by their obligations to respect Lebanon's sovereignty, territorial integrity, unity and political independence."

Syria's U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari told reporters his country was fully complying with the arms embargo and all U.N. resolutions. The Lebanese defense and foreign ministers and a Lebanese intelligence chief had denied reports of Syrian violations, he told Al-Arabiya television.

The spokesman for Iran's U.N. Mission was unavailable for comment.

But Terje Roed-Larsen, the top U.N. envoy for Syria-Lebanon issues, said representatives of the Lebanese government "have stated publicly and also in conversations with us that there has been arms coming across the border into Lebanon."

The U.N. has not received any information on quantities and types of weapons or where they come from, however.

Bolton said Roed Larsen told the U.N. Security Council "that the government was afraid to be specific about these arms coming across the Syrian-Lebanese border because of the fear of retaliation."

Roed-Larsen, when asked about Bolton's comments, said he had no specific information about threats of retaliation. But he said there had been 14 assassinations and assassination attempts in Lebanon since the February 2005 killing of former prime minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut.