Syria's border with Lebanon cannot be controlled without security cooperation with Beirut to strengthen the frontier, Syria's foreign minister was quoted as saying on Wednesday. Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem told the pan-Arab Asharq al-Awsat newspaper there was smuggling both to and from Lebanon.
"The question of the border between Syria and Lebanon needs two actions: delineation (of the frontier) and Syrian-Lebanese security cooperation," Moualem was quoted as saying. "...Nobody can control the borders with Lebanon."
"We are waiting for the Lebanese government to carry out steps from its side for us to undertake that," Moualem said.
A U.N. Security Council resolution called on Beirut to tighten border control to prevent arms smuggling. A border assessment team dispatched by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in July concluded there had "been no decisive impact on overall border security". "The overall situation renders Lebanon's borders as penetrable as they were one year ago during the first assessment," it said in an Aug. 26 report, according to Reuters.
Moualem reiterated Damascus' denial that his country is the main transit route for weapons to Hizbullah.
