Al-Hariri encourages US President to strengthen relations with Syria

The Israeli radio on Wednesday quoted a US source to the meeting of the US President George Bush with the Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri in Washington on Tuesday said that al-Hariri had encouraged the US President to strengthen the US relations with Syria for the interests of the two countries.

The sources added that Bush, during the meeting, commended the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and said that " he is a man who can be worked with."

On the other hand, the Israeli radio quoted well-informed US sources as saying that the officials in Washington have asserted the need of containing any escalation on the Lebanese- Israeli borders despite their understanding of the pressures al-Hariri undergoes over the deployment of the Lebanese army in South Lebanon because the US does not bear new attack to be carried out by the Hizbullah in Shebaa farms especially in the tense phase the region is witnessing.

The sources indicated that the US officials expressed their sympathy with the attempts made by al-Hariri to finding a distance between him and Hizbullah following the recent Shebaa operfinding outation.