French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday called for Syrian troops to withdraw from Lebanon. France and the United States are co-sponsors of a United Nations resolution that demands Syria pull all its 15,000 forces from its neighbor.
One day after the Lebanon's pro-Syrian prime minister announced his resignation, Rice and Barnier used a news conference on the margins of a global conference on Palestinian reform to repeat that demand.
"The Lebanese people have very courageously expressed their aspiration for freedom, their aspiration for a sovereign Lebanon. The Lebanese want to be masters of their own state," Barnier said.
