Posted on 07/19/2006 1:12:09 PM PDT by Shermy
UNITED NATIONS, July 19 (Reuters) - Syria barred a U.N. mission to the Middle East unless it excluded one of its members, Norwegian Terje Roed-Larsen, the U.N. adviser on Syria-Lebanon issues, a U.N. official said on Wednesday.
Mark Malloch Brown, the deputy secretary-general, told reporters the mission decided not to go to Damascus because it urgently needed to return to New York to brief the U.N. Security Council on a flurry of diplomatic initiatives.
"The mission did plan to go to Syria and one of the issues we would have had to grapple with is what to do with Roed-Larsen," Malloch Brown said. "What would have been a tough choice is one we did not have to make."
Damascus, diplomats said, had barred Roed-Larsen because of his previous reports on Security Council resolutions demanding Syrian forces withdraw from Lebanon and militia disarm. His reports have also cited weapons flowing to Lebanon's Hizbollah militia across the Syrian border.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan sent the team to the Middle East to search for ways to end the Israeli-Lebanese conflict. He will report to the U.N. Security Council on Thursday.
"Obviously the secretary-general considers it his business to choose who to send on good offices mission," Malloch Brown said. "It is clearly the case that the Syrians didn't want him," he said of Roed-Larsen.
But Malloch Brown said that if the U.N. initiative continues, Annan would want a team to visit Damascus "and this will be an issue he will have to face down the road."
Annan, he said, would be reporting on the diplomatic overtures and his demands for a cease-fire at a dinner on Thursday with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and possibly Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief.
The team was led by political adviser Vijay Nambiar of India and included Middle East envoy Alvaro de Soto of Peru as well as Roed-Larsen, a Norwegian diplomat.
Well, can't fault syria for not wanting the UN there. Even evil bastards have their good points.
How can you not visit Syria if you want to come up with a diplomatic solution? The UN is not a serious organization.
There is no diplomatic solution.
Not yet.
Tony Snow to Helen Thomas at yesterdays briefing.
Syria didn't want the UN fellow in Syria because the fellow blew the whistle on Syria's under the table activities. Syria is just chock full of unpleasant surprises.
Not ever.
One does not negotiate with a rabid dog bearing down on him. There is only one solution - and it ain't diplomatic. It lands right between the eyes
We need to replace the roadmap to peace with the roadmap to Damascus.
The UN has different ideas. To them, a cease fire is a diplomatic solution.
Actually the Syrians are very quiet lately. I think they are acting like the kid who is dared by the bully to poke the dog with the stick.
Syria doesn't want to poke Israel. Iran is a chump. They are too far away to do anything and Syria knows this.
I found a perfect recipe for diplomatic solutions:
Ingredients
1 pint: red metal paint
1 each: 3 inch wide paint brush
1 each per terrorist stronghold: neutron bomb
1 each per distance requirements: launcher
Take paint and brush, on neutron bomb(S) paint in large letters "DIPLOMATIC SOULUTION". When dry, launch bomb(s)
Terrorist strongholds should receive Diplomatic Solution from 30 minutes to 3 hours, depending on location.
There is definitely a diplomatic solution. Syria and its Hezbollah and Hamas allies just need to surrender unconditionally and disarm.
Then , we'll have peace.
If they don't like it, they are going to be in for some hurt I'd say. The disarming, and the return of the kidnapped Isreali soldiers, are pretty much unconditional requests that have to be met. It would be pretty shortsighted for the Jews to let them off the hook at this point in time.
Anyone who tyrant Assad can not 100% control is forbidden in Syria.
Good synopsis ;)
Amazing.... for a Norwegian diplomat to be persona non grata in Damascus....... that must mean the guy is not quite as much of a spineless weasel as most Scandinavian and EU diplomats.
That's the best political insulting answer I've seen. Calling araRATfink "full of inconsistencies and contradictions" plus "superficial...irrational...." Plus, the word "fascinating" is a political term when one politico can't stand the other but can't or won't say it publicly.
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