US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday the US was not seeking to isolate Syria on the world scene but was hoping Damascus would act itself on a range of US complaints.
Washington has been stepping up the pressure on Syria, considered a sponsor of terrorism, since Monday's assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri in Beirut.
But Rice, who recalled her ambassador to Damascus this week for "urgent consultations," denied Friday the aim was to isolate the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. "We are not trying to isolate Syria," she told reporters after meeting with Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot. "What we are trying to do is get Syria to engage in more responsible behavior."
She cited in particular the need to cooperate with a thorough investigation of the Hariri assassination, which the US blames at least indirectly on the Syrians.
Rice also reiterated her call for the Syrians to end their support for insurgents in Iraq as well as Islamic militants seeking to wreck the Middle East peace process.
Her remarks that the US administration was not trying to isolate Syria appeared to contrast somewhat with her call at a Senate hearing Thursday for "concerted international pressure" on Damascus.
President George W. Bush told a news conference the same day that "the idea is to continue to work with the world to remind Syria it's not in their interest to be isolated."
But State Department spokesman Richard Boucher denied there was any change Friday in the tenor of the Bush administration's approach to Syria. "I don't think there was any toning down," he said.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
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