A UN envoy is to travel to Syria on Thursday to ask Damascus for a date for the withdrawal of its troops required under a UN resolution, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said Wednesday.
"I hope the envoy will be able to come back with a timetable," Annan told journalists in Madrid after meeting Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
At the United Nations Tuesday, Annan said that the UN envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, would hold talks with Lebanese and Syrian leaders this week to discuss the call for Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon.
Roed-Larsen has been charged with overseeing the implementation of Resolution 1559, passed by the Security Council last year, which demands Syria's withdrawal as well as the disarming of militant groups like Hezbollah.
Annan also told reporters here "the Security Council resolution requires withdrawal into Syria.
"What is essential is that full and complete withdrawal takes place. The government of Syria has not rejected the Security Council resolution."
Annan's comments came as Syria redeployed nearly half the 14,00 troops it has in Lebanon, moving them towards the border but not crossing over it.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has pledged to pull back the troops and an unknown number of intelligence forces in Lebanon towards the Bekaa, where the other Syrian soldiers are already based, by the end of March.
But he stopped short of announcing a full withdrawal as demanded by UN Security Council Resolution 1559.
Syria's ambassador to the United States nevertheless said Tuesday that the troops would be out of Lebanon by May, when legislative elections are due to be held.