UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had promised to enforce an arms embargo on Hizbullah under a UN resolution that halted Israel's war with the Lebanese group.
Kofi Annan
"The president informed me that Syria supports Security Council Resolution 1701 and will help in its implementation," Mr Annan told reporters after talks with Assad in Damascus.
"While stating Syrian objections to the presence of foreign forces along the Syrian-Lebanese border, the president committed to me that Syria will take all necessary measures to implement in full paragraph 15 of the resolution," Mr Annan added, referring to a provision that bans illegal arms shipments to Lebanon.
Mr Annan said Syria would beef up border security and was ready to run joint patrols with the Lebanese army.
Syrian leaders have been angered by an Israeli demand for international troops to deploy on the Lebanese-Syrian border, the main conduit in the past for Hizbollah weapons supplies.
Lebanon, which has sent 8,600 soldiers to patrol the frontier, says it has no plans to ask UN troops to join them.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem told reporters later that no weapons were crossing from his country to the guerrillas in Lebanon. "No arms are being smuggled to the resistance (Hizbullah) from Syria," he said.
Mr Annan later arrived in the Gulf state of Qatar, the only Arab state currently with a seat on the U.N. Security Council.
The UN chief said he had asked Syria, which along with Iran is Hizbullah's main ally, to use its influence to obtain the release of two Israeli soldiers whose capture by the guerrillas in July triggered the 34-day war in Lebanon.
Hizbullah offered at the outset to swap the soldiers for Lebanese prisoners held in Israel after third-party mediation.
Ernst Uhrlau, head of Germany's foreign intelligence service, the BND, arrived in Beirut late yesterday, a Lebanese security source said, fuelling speculation Germany may mediate as it has done between Israel and Hizbullah in the past.