US Unhappy Syria Held Americans Without Notifying Washington
Saturday October 11st, 2008 / 0h34
WASHINGTON (AFP)--The U.S. State Department said Friday it expressed its concern to the Syrian authorities that they had held two American journalists for several days without notifying the U.S. government. However the State Department said it was also happy that Americans Taylor Luck and Holli Chmela are safe and "appear to be in good health" after Syria arrested them for allegedly entering Syria illegally and then released them. The pair were turned over to the U.S. embassy in Damascus early Friday before they traveled on to Jordan. "We have expressed our concern to the Syrian government that the two Americans were held for several days and that they (the Syrians) did not notify us," said Gordon Duguid, a State Department spokesman. Although Syria is not party to agreements requiring it to notify Washington in such circumstances, Duguid said, "it would have been better had they notified us they were holding our citizens in order to resolve this issue more quickly." On arriving back in Amman early Friday, Luck, 23, and Chmela, 27, told their employer, the Jordan Times, they had been abducted by a taxi driver and accomplice who were supposed to take them legally across the border. They were arrested by the Syrian authorities for illegally entering the country and held for eight days while they were being interrogated. They were turned over to the U.S. embassy in Damascus early Friday before traveling on to Jordan. Luck and Chmela had arrived in Beirut on holiday on Sept. 29. The pair said they had intended to obtain visas at the Lebanese-Syrian border crossing and to complete their holiday in Syria before returning to Jordan by land. Click here to go to Dow Jones NewsPlus, a web front page of today's most important business and market news, analysis and commentary: http://www.djnewsplus.com/al?rnd=pz0rU6jVsz%2FDfuqi3KLR1g%3D%3D. You can use this link on the day this article is published and the following day.
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