Terje Roed-Larsen – Special Envoy for the implementation of Security Council resolution 1559 (2004) – asserted last February in an interview conducted by the Council on Foreign Relations, that absolutely no one of any real consequence doubts that Syria owns the disputed land, Shaba’a Farms, so Israel has indeed fulfilled its obligations to withdraw from Lebanese land it occupied. But others argue that the UN was pressured, mainly by the U.S., to deny that the 1951 oral agreement between Syria and Lebanon was valid in order to pass 1559 and to invalidate Hizbollah’s resistance status.
Inconsequentially speaking;
Lebanon’s Prime Minister Fouad Siniora held a press conference following his address to the UN Security Council on 21 April 2006. He told a reporter that, “many months ago, he had appointed a commission to undertake an in-depth study, based on documentation proving Lebanese de facto sovereignty over those lands, through persons registered in the area going back to the 1920s “when greater Lebanon was the name of the area”. He had such documents, as well as maps in French archives. He had previously submitted those conclusions and those maps to Mr. Roed-Larsen when he visited Lebanon, and he had said “you have a case” and should follow through, he recalled.”
LEBANON’S RAFIQ HARIRI
A NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Transcript
MARGARET WARNER: And with me now is Prime Minister Hariri. He’ll be seeing President Bush tomorrow. Welcome Mr. Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: Thank you.
MARGARET WARNER: Are the news accounts correct that you told Secretary Powell Lebanon will not do anything to try to restrain Hezbollah attacks on Israel?
PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: I said that we respect the blue line, which is equivalent to the borders but Shebaa Farm is a Lebanese territory. And because it is Lebanese and because it is occupied by Israel so the Lebanese people had the right to have it back, by all means including the resistance.
MARGARET WARNER: So the fact that the U.N. even has certified this line and has said that Israel has fully complied and that the status of Shebaa Farms should be settled when Israel negotiates with Syria, that just has no meaning as far as you’re concerned?
PRIME MINISTER HARIRI: Well, you know, this is a Lebanese territory. And the Syrians are saying it is Lebanese. The Israelis are saying it is not Israeli. So it is a matter of our land or Syrian land. But one thing is sure — that it is not an Israeli land and it is occupied by Israel.