German governing party to send delegation to Syria

Deutsche Presse Agentur
Published: Saturday September 2, 2006

Berlin- Germany's co-governing Social Democrats (SPD) will send a delegation to Syria later this month in a bid to persuade Damascus to join efforts for a solution to the Lebanon crisis, one of its members said Saturday. Martin Schulz, a member of the SPD executive who will lead the mission, said the team would also visit Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territories, but did not give a specific date.

"The Palestinian problem remains at the root of the conflict," Schulz told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The visit to Damascus, he said, was aimed at "supporting the strategy of Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier to draw Syria into the peace process.

Steinmeier abruptly cancelled a trip to the Syrian capital in mid- August, following a speech by President Bashar al-Assad in which the Syrian leader praised Lebanon's fundamentalist Hezbollah movement for standing up to Israel.

Contact was reestablished earlier this week when Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem phoned Steinmeier to discuss the Mideast crisis. The two men arranged to speak again next week.

Germany meanwhile is waiting for the Lebanese government to make a formal request to the United Nations so that it can dispatch a navy task force to patrol the waters along the Lebanese coast.

The cabinet is expected to meet on Monday to discuss the deployment so that parliament can approve it on Friday.

Germany is expected to deploy a force of more than 2,000 as well as ships and warplanes as part of a UN force to oversee the ceasefire in Lebanon.

© 2006 DPA - Deutsche Presse-Agenteur