WASHINGTON, May 18 (UPI) -- U.S. Republican lawmakers protested the nomination for Robert Ford as the next U.S. envoy to Syria in part because of Hezbollah and Scud missile concerns.
U.S. and Israeli officials have expressed concern over long-range missile transfers from Syria to Hezbollah guerrillas in southern Lebanon. Israeli officials in April and again in May said Syrian support for Hezbollah was upsetting the delicate security situation in the region.
U.S. President Barack Obama nominated Ford, the deputy chief of mission in Iraq, in February to serve as U.S. envoy to Damascus. He would be the first envoy since Washington severed diplomatic ties with Syria in 2005.
P.J. Crowley, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department, told reporters in Washington in April that while the allegations were destabilizing, Washington felt that engagement was the best way to send a strong message to Damascus.
The letter from 12 Republican lawmakers to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, highlighted in the U.S. news magazine Foreign Policy, said the recent Scud allegations were cause for concern over engagement.
"If engagement precludes prompt punitive action in response to egregious behavior, such as the transfer of long-range missiles to a terrorist group, then it is not only a concession but also a reward for such behavior," the letter reads.
U.N. peacekeepers and French defense officials said there is no evidence of Scud missiles in southern Lebanon.
