US ambassador in Syria summoned home for talks

WASHINGTON - The United States has recalled its ambassador to Syria for urgent consultations to show its anger at Syrian dominance of Lebanon following the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.

US officials said they are considering imposing new sanctions on Syria because of its refusal to withdraw its 14,000 troops from Lebanon and the administration's belief that Syria lets Palestinian militants and Iraqi insurgents operate on its soil.

While acknowledging they do not know who was responsible for Monday's car-bomb assassination, US officials argue that Syria's military presence and its political power-broking role were generally to blame for Lebanon's instability.

US Ambassador Margaret Scobey will return to Washington shortly to discuss how to get Syrian cooperation on Lebanon, Iraq and Middle East peace, as well as the possibility of new punitive sanctions, the White House and State Department said.

"We want to send a stiff message to the Syrian government, " said a senior State Department official."

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Scobey was recalled to "talk about these concerns and to talk about where we go from here with Syria."

Asked if the United States was getting closer to imposing additional sanctions on Syria, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said: "We are indeed concerned about many aspects of Syrian behaviour.

"The longer we go on without seeing some significant progress ... the more likely it becomes that we will look to the various tools that we have, including the Syria Accountability Act, to impose further measures."

US President George W Bush imposed some economic sanctions against Syria under the act in May, and other steps he could take include restrictions to isolate Syria's banks and bar US financial institutions from dealing with them.

The administration also was debating whether the US military could cross the Syrian border from Iraq in "hot pursuit" of insurgents, sources familiar with the discussions said.

The decision to recall Scobey was "a very overt political message to Syria that the US is frustrated with Syrian behaviour at a very delicate juncture" in the Middle East, said David Makovsky, a Middle East expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The White House cited Syria's military presence in Lebanon in condemning Monday's assassination of Hariri in Beirut. McClellan said, however, "It's too early to know who was responsible for this attack."

Syria has condemned the killing and denied involvement. It blamed "enemies of Lebanon." It has also rejected accusations it supports terrorism.

Scobey met Syrian officials after Hariri's assassination to express "our deep concern as well as our profound outrage over this heinous act (of terrorism)," Boucher said.

The United States has repeatedly pressed Syria to end its military presence in Lebanon and to halt the activities of "international terrorist groups" on Syrian soil and the use of Syrian territory by the Iraqi insurgency, he said.

"To date these concerns have not been adequately addressed," Boucher said.

The Bush administration is consulting the UN Security Council about punishing those responsible for the killing.

Last week the State Department called in Syria's ambassador, a sign a decision on US sanctions may be near.

Bush is considering freezing the assets of high-ranking Syrian officials, administration and congressional officials said, as well as steps to isolate Syria's banks and bar US financial institutions from dealing with them.

The State Department designates Damascus as a sponsor of terrorism and as such has subjected it to limited sanctions for years.

- REUTERS