WASHINGTON - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke Monday with the European Union's top foreign policy representative Javier Solana and French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier about the Lebanon crisis, the State Department said.
They spoke by telephone about "how we needed to see the Security Council resolution fully implemented, but also about how we needed to continue our discussions of how the international community can help with that," the department's spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters.
President Jacques Chirac of France and US President George W. Bush agreed Monday on seeking a "full and complete implementation" of a UN resolution demanding the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, Chirac's office said.
Bush called Chirac Monday to discuss with the French leader the situation in Lebanon after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Lebanese counterpart Emile Lahoud issued a joint statement in which Syria pledged to pull its troops toward the eastern Bekaa Valley by the end of March.
France and the United States were the two countries behind the adoption last September of the UN resolution 1559, which calls for an immediate and complete pullout of Syrian troops, following a deployment of almost three decades.
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States, France and the United Nations might consider the possibility of setting up a team to monitor security in Lebanon as the Syrians withdrew.
"One of the things we need to talk about is sort of monitoring of the security situation in Lebanon after the withdrawal," the official said, without elaborating.
On how much thought has been given if Syria did not withdraw its forces completely, Boucher said such questions were premised on the idea that there was stability in Lebanon at present because the Syrian troops were there.
"I think if you look at the situation, the fact that a former prime minister could be assassinated in such a major and horrible attack shows that there's a vacuum of authority in Lebanon now," Boucher said.
"And the vacuum of authority needs to be filled by the Lebanese government, not by some foreign force," he said. "So Syrian troops need to withdraw."
Washington has already accused Damascus of a least indirect responsibility for the February 14 murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, a vocal opponent of the Syrian presence in his country.
An estimated 14,000 Syrian troops remain in Lebanon, along with an unknown number of security agents.
Syria is under intense pressure to end its political and military grip on Lebanon after Damascus first sent in troops in 1976 shortly after the start of the country's devastating civil war which ended in 1990.
03/07/2005 21:22 GMT