by Mohamed Fadhel
MANAMA - German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder called on Syria Wednesday to promptly withdraw from Lebanon, saying the earlier it did so the better.
The European Union is committed to the implementation of UN Security Council resolutions, "which means that Syria must pull out of Lebanon", Schroeder told reporters after talks with Bahraini leaders in Manama, the fourth leg of a Gulf tour.
"The quicker this happens the better," said Schroeder, who was referring to the US- and French-sponsored Security Council Resolution 1559 calling for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Lebanon.
The German leader made similar remarks in Qatar Tuesday amid mounting international -- chiefly US and French -- pressure on Syria to pull its 14,000 troops and undetermined number of intelligence agents from Lebanon.
The pressure has been piling up on Damascus since the February 14 assassination of former Lebanese premier and architect of Lebanon's postwar reconstruction, Rafiq Hariri, in a massive bomb blast in Beirut, for which Syria and the Syrian-backed Lebanese regime have been widely blamed.
Schroeder, who met Bahrain's King Hamad and Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, said his talks with Bahraini leaders focused on economic cooperation between Germany, Bahrain and the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
"Germany is interested in taking part in the railway network which the GCC countries are planning to build," said Schroeder, stressing the role that German technology could play in implementing the project.
Leaders of the GCC -- which groups Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- gave the go-ahead to the project during a meeting here in December.
The project envisages linking the oil-rich Gulf Arab states through a 2,000-kilometer (1,250-mile) railway line at an estimated cost of 5.7 billion dollars.
Schroeder said he and his Bahraini hosts had agreed on boosting economic links.
"We discussed cooperation in the petrochemical, power and energy fields," he said, adding that German firms were interested in doing more business in the region.
The official BNA news agency said Schroeder and the Bahraini prime minister had agreed on increasing flights between their two countries and on cooperating in the oil and petrochemical industries, in addition to "benefitting from German expertise in municipal services, the environment and the water and electricity fields."
The two men laid the foundation stone for a European university which will cost 100 million euros (131.8 million dollars )to build and is expected to open in September 2007, BNA said, adding that it would be the first university in the region with an environment-dominated curriculum.
There is an estimated four billion euros (5.28 billion dollars) in German investments and projects in the seven countries Schroeder is visiting. One of the biggest is a 1.3-billion-dollar (985-million-euro) petrochemical plant in Bahrain set to be built in a joint venture involving Germany's Linde Group.
Schroeder later left Bahrain for Yemen, and is also due to visit Oman and the United Arab Emirates. He went to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar before coming to Bahrain.
03/02/2005 15:09 GMT