Response From The Arab World
Several Arab states also joined in with the withdrawal demands. As Al-Assad arrived in Saudi Arabia for emergency consultation with Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdel-Aziz, Assad was told in no uncertain terms that Syria must comply with UN Security Council demands immediately. It was reported by the opposition Lebanese newspaper The Daily Star that Assad offered to remove most of the 15,000 troops Syria has stationed in Lebanon during the talks, but insisted on leaving a force of 3,000 in the country. This has not been independently corroborated.
The annual Arab summit, which took place on March 23 in Algeria, did not ask Syria to withdraw, which would have given the pullback an Arab endorsement as envisaged in the 1989 Taif Agreement rather than making it dependent on Resolution 1559. Algerian Foreign Minister Abdel-Aziz Belkhadem discussed the consensus ahead of the summit, stating that "we all agreed to demand the implementation of the Taif Accord with respect to international legitimacy". Controversially, the crisis in Lebanon was not included on the agenda for the summit, which almost half of the Arab leaders did not attend.
Read more about this topic: Cedar Revolution
Famous quotes containing the words response, arab and/or world:
“Because humans are not alone in exhibiting such behavior—bees stockpile royal jelly, birds feather their nests, mice shred paper—it’s possible that a pregnant woman who scrubs her house from floor to ceiling [just before her baby is born] is responding to a biological imperative . . . . Of course there are those who believe that . . . the burst of energy that propels a pregnant woman to clean her house is a perfectly natural response to their mother’s impending visit.”
—Mary Arrigo (20th century)
“I saw the Arab map.
It resembled a mare shuffling on,
dragging its history like saddlebags,
nearing its tomb and the pitch of hell.”
—Adonis [Ali Ahmed Said] (b. 1930)
“The world only remembers the winners.”
—Edmund H. North, British screenwriter, and Lewis Gilbert. Admiral Lutjens (Karel Stepanek)