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Thursday, October 18, 2007

[wvns] Interpreter error led to incorrect Syria nuclear report

US says Israel jets struck Syria :

Israeli jets carried out an air strike in Syria last week, a US defence official has said
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6989961.stm

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Israel tried to attack ground targets in Syria, says Bishara:

Former MK says IAF's infiltration of Syrian airspace was meant to take out anti-aircraft missile facilities, ground targets. 'This was a full blown aerial operation and we are treading on dangerous ground,' he says
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3448134,00.html

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Syria Complains About Israel to UN : -

Syria complained to the United Nations about Israeli ``aggression,'' saying Israeli warplanes dropped munitions in Syria, the country's ambassador to the U.N. said Tuesday.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6913561,00.html

===

U.N.: Interpreter error led to incorrect Syria nuclear report

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-10-17-un-syria_N.htm?POE=click-refer

Digg del.icio.us Newsvine Reddit Facebook What's this? UNITED
NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations blamed an interpreter's error for an
erroneous report that Syria claimed an Israeli airstrike hit a Syrian
nuclear facility, a mistake that made headlines in the Middle East and
heightened concerns over Damascus' nuclear ambitions.
Syria denied on Wednesday that one of its representatives told the
U.N. General Assembly's committee that deals with disarmament on
Tuesday that Israel had attacked a Syrian nuclear facility and added
that "such facilities do not exist in Syria."

The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency, SANA, quoting an unnamed
Foreign Ministry source, said its representative was misquoted — and
after more than seven hours of investigation the United Nations said
that was indeed the case.

"There was an interpretation error made yesterday when the First
Committee was in session," U.N. associate spokesman Farhan Haq said.
"There was no use of the word nuclear."

"Although in English the interpreter had suggested that the Syrian
delegate had referred to an attack on a nuclear facility, what he said
was 'like what happened on the 6th of September against my country,"'
Haq said.

FIND MORE STORIES IN: Wednesday | Israel | Israeli | UN | Syria |
Syrian | Damascus
The incident started Tuesday night with a U.N. press summary of the
First Committee that paraphrased an unnamed Syrian representative as
saying that "Israel was the fourth largest exporter of weapons of mass
destruction and a violator of other nations' airspace, and it had
taken action against nuclear facilities, including the 6 July attack
in Syria."

Israeli warplanes carried out an airstrike in northeastern Syria near
the border with Turkey on Sept. 6, not July 6.

The target remains unknown but widespread reports say it may have been
a nascent nuclear facility, a claim Syria has denied.

At U.N. headquarters in New York, the spokesman's office said
Wednesday morning the Syrian representative spoke in Arabic.

After several hours, Haq said the exact words of the English
interpreter were: "An entity that is the fourth largest exporter of
weapons of mass destruction in the world, an entity that violates
other countries' airspace, and that takes action against nuclear
facilities, including the attack on 6 July this year on a nuclear
facility in my country — that entity has no right to lie, which it has
done consistently."

It took until late afternoon for the U.N. to issue the correct
translation from the original Arabic words spoken by the Syrian
representative.

According to the corrected text, the Syrian delegate said: "...the
(entity) that is ranking number four among the exporters of lethal
weapons in the world; that which violates the airspace of sovereign
states and carries out military aggression against them, like what
happened on Sept. 6 against my country, such entity with all those
characteristics and even more, has no right for its representative to
go on lying without shame..."

The Syrian representative was replying to a speech to the committee on
Monday by Israeli Ambassador Miriam Ziv, deputy director general for
strategic affairs in the Foreign Ministry, who accused Syria of
continuing to transfer weapons to Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon.

According to the U.N., the Syrian delegate accused Israel of planting
"millions of cluster bombs in Lebanon" and refusing to hand over the
relevant maps, of burying "nuclear wastes" in the occupied Palestinian
territories, of building illegal settlements, and of trying "to change
the identity of the Syrian territories" in the Golan Heights which
Israel captured in the 1967 war.

On Wednesday, before the U.N. announced the error, the Syrian
representative demanded at the disarmament committee that the U.N.
investigate how the mistake was made, suggesting that it was
deliberate, and correct the record.

Israeli radio stations, citing unidentified Israeli diplomats, on
Wednesday quoted the Syrians as telling the U.N. meeting that a
nuclear target had been struck. However, the Israeli radio reports did
not say whether the Israeli diplomats had attended the session or
merely had read the U.N. press release on the meeting.

President Bashar Assad said earlier this month that the target was an
"unused military building."

Asked about the Sept. 6 incident on Tuesday, before the erroneous
report surfaced, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said "we have not
received any concrete evidence and concrete information. We need to
get more clear information."

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