Syria, Lebanon announce partial pullout date

A Lebanese youth carries a banner that reads: "Syria out now" amid a sea of national flags during a demonstration in Martyrs Square in the heart of Beirut yesterday to mark three weeks since the killing of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri (portraits). Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Lebanese counterpart Emile Lahoud are meeting in Damascus today to pave the way for an expected pullback of Syrian troops in its tiny neigbour. PHOTO: AFP

The announcement, made after a meeting between Syrian President Bashar Assad and Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, said Syrian troops will pull back from northern and central Lebanon to the east, near Syria's border.

Then, military officials from both countries will decide within a month how many Syrian troops will remain in the Bekaa Valley and how long they will stay there.

After a negotiated timeframe, the two governments will "agree to complete the withdrawal of the remaining forces," the statement said.

The Syrian and Lebanese presidents met yesterday to work out a Syrian troop withdrawal from Lebanon demanded by the United Nations, and Syrian soldiers in the mountains east of Beirut began packing their gear.

Lebanon's defense minister said the two-phase withdrawal would start immediately after the end of the talks in Damascus between Syria's Bashar al-Assad and Lebanon's Emile Lahoud.

Syrian soldiers based in the Lebanese mountain towns of Mdairij, Soufar and Aley were dismantling communications equipment or loading personal belongings and light military gear on military trucks, witnesses said.

Lebanese officials said Assad and Lahoud were expected to approve the withdrawal plan. A joint military committee would then meet and begin implementing the first stage, involving a military pullback to the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon.

Assad and Lahoud were also set to fix a timeline, at least for the first stage of the pullout, officials in Beirut said.

Facing intense international pressure, Assad announced plans on Saturday for a complete withdrawal of troops from Lebanon but said Damascus would still play a role in its smaller neighbor.

The United States has been wary of Assad's plans. The White House promised on Sunday to step up pressure for a complete and immediate withdrawal of Syrian troops and security services.

"The international community is not going to stand by and let Assad continue to have these kind of half-measures," said White House counselor Dan Bartlett.

But Lebanon's most powerful and only armed party, Hizbollah, called for peaceful protests on Tuesday in support of Syria and warned of mayhem if Syrian troops were to leave.

"The aim of America and Israel is to spread chaos in Lebanon and ... to find excuses for foreign intervention," Hizbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah told a news conference on Sunday.

Set up by Iran's Revolutionary Guard in 1982, Shia Muslim Hizbollah is the only Lebanese faction to keep its guns. It gained wide popularity after helping drive Israeli troops from south Lebanon in 2000. Washington says it is a terrorist group.