Syria's Defense Minister Mustafa Tlas condemned the United States on Sunday for siding with Israel in the Palestinian uprising.
Tlas said he “regretted that the US administration had renounced its responsibilities regarding the peace process and has aligned itself with Israel,” the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported.
U.S. President George W. Bush has given unprecedented support to Israel since December when Israel confined Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in the West Bank city of Ramallah, following a wave of shootings and suicide bombings inside Israel.
Bush has publicly accused Arafat of “enhancing terror” and demanded he carry out “a better job” in fighting Palestinian activists, after Israeli commandos on January 3, seized more than 50 tons of weapons on board the Karine A cargo ship, allegedly headed for the Gaza Strip.
“While the United States keeps these positions, it will lead towards an explosion, and this calls for vigilance upon the part of Arabs,” Tlas said, speaking during a military ceremony in Damascus.
Tlas condemned Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for “crimes against the Palestinian people and the support from which he benefits on the part of the US administration under the cover of the war on terror.”
In his first State of the Union speech last week before a joint session of Congress, Bush denounced Palestinian resistance groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as the Lebanese resistance movement Hizbollah, which Syria and Iran sponsor. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
