UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan will keep working with Damascus to fully implement a Security Council resolution demanding the complete withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon, the world body said today.
Annan dispatched Terje Roed-Larsen last week for talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as the UN prepared to send back a team to verify Syria's intelligence withdrawal from Lebanon.
The move coincided with US remarks accusing Syrian intelligence of having an assassination hit list against opposition figures in Lebanon - a charge Damascus has denied.
"The secretary-general was encouraged by Mr. Roed-Larsen's report," said a statement by Nejib Friji, chief of the UN Information Centre in Beirut.
"He will continue working together with President Assad, the Syrian government and other parties for the full implementation of Security Council resolution 1559," the statement said.
Roed-Larsen, who briefed Annan in Paris about the meeting, is assigned to follow up Syria's implementation of the September 2004 resolution, which required Damascus to end its 29-year military presence in Lebanon.
Syria pulled its 14,000 troops out in April, bowing to world pressure after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri on February 14th.
UN officials and diplomats said on Friday Annan had decided to send a verification team back to Lebanon to see if Syrian intelligence agents were still operating in the country.
The White House had said it obtained information that Damascus had drawn up an assassination list of Lebanese opposition politicians, and prominent anti-Syrian leader Walid Jumblatt also made the same charge.
A UN verification team reported on May 23rd that Syria had withdrawn its soldiers but said there was no way to determine if plain clothes agents were still in Lebanon.