- (AFP) -- US President George W. Bush today urged Syria
to shut its borders to fleeing followers of Saddam Hussein and turn over
any who have already found "safe haven" in Iraq's western neighbour.
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- "We expect them to do everything they can to prevent
people who should be held to account from escaping in their country,"
he said after meeting for the first time at two area military hospitals
with US soldiers wounded in Iraq.
-
- "And it they are in their country, we expect the
Syrian authorities to turn them over to the proper folks," said Bush,
who met privately with some 75 hurt soldiers and their families accompanied
by First Lady Laura Bush.
-
- "We strongly urge them (Syrian leaders) not to allow
for Baath party members, or Saddam's families, or generals on the run,
to seek safe haven and find safe haven there," said Bush.
-
- Syria "just needs to know we expect full cooperation,"
he said.
-
- Syria had told the United States it had closed its border
with Iraq to all but humanitarian traffic, US officials said yesterday,
as they stepped up warnings to Damascus not to assist the remnants of Saddam's
collapsed regime.
-
- "We certainly hope that proves to be true,"
US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
-
- The US ambassador to Syria, Theodore Khattouf, had been
told of the closure in meetings with Syrian officials in Damascus, but
stressed that Washington would be watching the border closely to see if
the move was enforced, the State Department said.
-
- Boucher said the US military and intelligence agencies
would be monitoring the frontier "quite closely" and he repeated
warnings issued over the past few days by senior US officials that Syria
faced a critical choice in its dealings with Iraq.
-
- "Syria has choice to make and we hope Syria makes
the right one," Boucher told reporters.
-
- A senior State Department official said later it was
possible that Damascus's definition of "humanitarian traffic"
might well be different than Washington's.
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- http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/12/1050069104592.html
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