Posted on 07/21/2011 12:57:11 PM PDT by Eleutheria5
BEIRUT -Syria warned the American and French ambassadors Wednesday not to travel outside the capital without permission, two weeks after they angered the regime by visiting a city that has become the center of the country's four-month-old uprising.
If the U.S. and French envoys disobey the order, Syria will ban all diplomats from leaving Damascus, Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said during a lecture at Damascus University.
"We did not evict the two ambassadors because we want the relations to develop in the future and in order for their governments to review their stances toward Syria," al-Moallem said.
"If these acts are repeated, we will impose a ban preventing (diplomats) from going more than 25 kilometers (15 miles) outside Damascus," he said.
In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Heide Bronke Fulton said the order reflected a government that has something to hide. She said the U.S. ambassador and other diplomats must be allowed to travel throughout Syria to document the crackdown.
The French Foreign Ministry declined to comment.
Syria has come under withering international criticism and sanctions for its crackdown, which activists say has killed some 1,600 people, most of them unarmed protesters.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Syrian authorities "to stop repression immediately" and urged President Bashar Assad "to concretely respond to pressing grievances and longer term concerns of the Syrian people," U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said in New York.
(Excerpt) Read more at aolnews.com ...
I’m sure over half of the “residents” of the U.S. embassy are CIA agents with all sorts of diplomatic titles as cover. They know it, we know it, and they know we know it. It is just part of the game. Regardless, these “representatives” have diplomatic immunity wherever they go. Any attack on them or the embassy itself is supposed to be viewed as a direct attack on U.S. homeland. Any such provocation should result in Syria become a sea of green glass!
Notice I added the word "supposed". We all know it won't! Obama will keep his "Can't we all just get along" attitude.
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