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.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the