Ali Shrugs off Buqaiaa Incident, Calls for More Border Control

Syrian ambassador Ali Abdul Karim Ali hoped on Tuesday that Lebanese authorities would exert further efforts in controlling the border with Syria after blaming Syrian troops’ arrest of two Lebanese General Security members on a rocket attack from Lebanon on Syrian territories.

Following talks with Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour, Ali said: “When border guards are targeted or Syrian territories are targeted by fire from the Lebanese side, then the solution should come through coordination between the two countries” to prevent the recurrence of such incidents.

Around 20 Syrian soldiers briefly kidnapped two members of Lebanon’s General Security on Monday after infiltrating the northern region of Wadi Khaled and firing at their offices in the area of al-Buqaiaa, media reports said.

A General Security communique said, however, that the Syrian army was pursing gunmen who had fired a rocket into the Syrian emigration and passports center near the border, wounding two officers.

President Michel Suleiman and Premier Najib Miqati condemned the incident, describing it as a violation of Lebanese sovereignty and international law.

An Nahar daily quoted sources on the border as saying that the Syrian incursion was the most dangerous and the first of its kind given that the troops crossed into Lebanon through the legal al-Buqaiaa crossing.

But the Syrian ambassador urged not to blow the reaction to any incident out of proportion “so that it doesn’t reflect negatively on either side.”

Mansour “was keen on stressing the continued coordination between the two leaderships and the involved agencies and is optimistic with the results of this coordination either in terms of controlling the border or preventing arms smuggling and the infiltration of gunmen,” Ali told reporters.

He also denied that the Lebanese foreign minister had summoned him over Monday’s incident in Wadi Khaled.

The meeting “was held based on my request,” he said.