KurdistanObserver.com

U.S. Rejects Syrian Statement, Threatens "Serious Consequences"

WASHINGTON, Sept 16 (KUNA) -- A Syrian government statement that Syria is doing all it can to police its borders with Iraq was rejected on Friday by State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli, who threatened Syria with "serious consequences".

"Innocent people are getting blown up in Iraq because Syria is allowing its territory to be used by terrorists bent on sowing murder and mayhem in Iraq," Ereli said during a department briefing. "And they are not going to succeed. The international community is not going to let this continue to happen".

More and more, Syria is being recognized as a "destabilizing element" in the region, Ereli said.

Problems with Syria go beyond Iraq and include Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority, Ereli said, "because there is a connection between Syria and terrorism and murder and mayhem in each of these three different areas".

In Lebanon, Syria continues to have a residual presence that does not contribute to the well-being and welfare of the Lebanese people or the sovereignty of Lebanon, he said.

In Gaza and the West Bank, Syria continues to associate with terrorist elements bent on sabotaging the peace process and undermining the peaceful aspirations of the Palestinian people for an independent state, "and they are certainly out of step with the rest of the world on that," Ereli said.

In Iraq, there continue to be clear and indisputable connections between Syrian territory and "activities in Syria that the Syrian government can do something about that are directly connected to the insurgency in Iraq," he added. - Responding to the call by Syria for the United States and Iraq to engage with Syria on the Iraq border issue, Ereli said, "There is no absence of engagement," but instead an absence of "a willingness on the part of the Syrian government to take actions that is within its capacity to take to prevent Syrian territory from being used by insurgents and those that insurgents have recruited from across the region and across the world to go into Iraq to kill innocent Iraqis and to prevent Iraq from being a democratic, stable and sovereign state".

"Does Syria not care that young guys from Yemen or Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan or Iran come into Damascus airport with a one-way ticket and no job and no place to stay and then find their way into Iraq, where they strap bombs to themselves and blow themselves up and kill women and children from a market?" Ereli said. "I mean, why does Syria continue to let that happen unless there is a deliberate decision to do it".

The message from the United States and Iraq to Syria is that Syria must "make a choice, because the choice you make, whether it is to do something or not to do something, has consequences, and serious consequences," Ereli said.

There is a critical and disproportionate role related to Syria and the insurgency in Iraq that needs to be addressed "with urgency," he added.

On Monday, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad said time was running out for Damascus to stop insurgent incursions into Iraq from Syria.