Syria said today it planned to pull back more troops to eastern Lebanon in line with a 16-year-old agreement and Lebanon's defence minister said troops would be on the move soon.
Damascus was ready to work with the United Nations to implement a Security Council resolution demanding its 14,000 troops leave Lebanon, Deputy Foreign Minister Waleed al-Mualem said, in apparent response to international pressure.
Tens of thousands of Lebanese have taken to the streets to protest against Syria's military and political grip on its tiny neighbor since a huge bomb killed Lebanon's former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri in Beirut last week.
"Syria expresses its keen interest in cooperating with the envoy of the secretary-general of the United Nations to accomplish his mission in the best formula possible," Mr Mualem said, reading from a statement. "The important withdrawals that have been carried out so far and will be carried out later will be done in agreement with Lebanon against the backdrop of the Taif Accord and the mechanisms it entails."
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called today on Syria to withdraw from Lebanon by April, when he is due to present a report on the issue to the Security Council, Al Arabiya television reported.
The satellite channel said Mr Annan told it in an interview he was referring to a full withdrawal, not a redeployment.
A three-member US team led by Irish Deputy Garda Commissioner Peter Fitzgerald arrived in Beirut to report on the assassination.
At the instructions of the Security Council, Mr Annan appointed a team last week to urgently report on "the circumstances, causes and consequences of the assassination."
Lebanon's Syrian-backed government has rejected calls for an international investigation committee into the February 14th killing but has pledged to cooperate with the UN mission.