Syria demanded here today the unconditional withdrawal of Israel from Lebanon and declared that the American sponsored agreement Israel and Lebanon signed last May 17 was “null and void.”
Addressing the 38th General Assembly, the Syrian Foreign Minister, Abdul Halim Khaddam, said the U.S. and Israel had imposed an agreement on Lebanon that threatened its national unity as well as the security of Syria. He called for an end to American involvement in the Middle East and said the multinational forces should leave Lebanon because, he charged, they have exceeded their declared objective and threatened peace and security in the region.
Khaddam also charged that “direct intervention of the U.S. marines in the civil war in support of one side represented a danger to the situation in the region.” He called for a halt to U.S. aid to Israel, declaring that a Middle East peace required Israel’s total withdrawal from the territories it has occupied since 1967, unconditional withdrawal from Lebanon and recognition of Palestinian rights to an independent state.
Khaddam urged the imposition of sanctions against Israel and suspension of Israel’s membership in the world organization.
President Francois Mitterrand of France, addressing the General Assembly today, said that French soldiers were in Lebanon as “soldiers of peace” and were there as part of a UN operation to keep the peace in that country.
Mitterrand, in brief remarks on the situation in Lebanon, stressed that France had no enemies in Lebanon and was present there to protect its citizens. He said that foreign troops would be unnecessary in Lebanon after all foreign armies had departed.
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