DAMASCUS, Syria, March 5 (UPI) -- Syrian President Bashar Assad announced Saturday he has agreed to redeploy Syrian forces in Lebanon.
Assad addressed the Syrian National Assembly, saying he agreed with Lebanese President Emile Lahoud on convening the joint Lebanese-Syrian Higher Council to discuss the redeployment, which he said would be gradual, the Daily Telegraph reported.
Assad said Syria would not stay in Lebanon "one day" longer than Lebanon wished, however he said the withdrawal would not "mean the absence of a Syrian role,'" reported the BBC.
The Syrian president added that with the final pullout of the remaining 14,000 Syrian troops from Syria, his country would have implemented its commitments to the Taif accord and U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559.
The Taif accord, reached in Saudi Arabia in 1989 with Arab and international endorsement ended Lebanon's 15-year civil war, allowed the Syrian forces in Lebanon to maintain security before gradually withdrawing from the country.
Resolution 1559 called for the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Lebanon.
Assad, whose declaration came a day after President George W. Bush demanded a full Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon by May, insisted his decision was not a result of international pressure, but, rather, it was due to the Lebanese consensus on seeing the Syrians out of their country.
He said the decision was in his country's higher interests.
