The United States on Monday reiterated its call for a complete and immediate Syrian pullout from Lebanon while saying some pullback by Syria represents some positive elements to the situation.

"It needs to be full, it needs to be complete, it needs to be unconditional, needs to be expeditious. That's what we want to see," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters.

"The fact that they (Syrians) have acknowledged the need for full and complete withdrawal, the fact that they have acknowledgedthe need to withdraw intelligence services along with military forces. So there's some positive elements here.

"But what we are looking for is what the international community stood for in Resolution 1559: that's full, complete, immediate withdrawal...There's no reason to do anything but go back to Syria for all the forces," the spokesman said.

On Sunday, US national security adviser Stephen Hadley said, "the sequence needs to be: get Syrian troops out of Lebanon, get free and fair elections, get a democratic government in place."

Syria has withdrawn nearly one third of Syria's 14,000 troops from Lebanon in the past few days. Syrian officials said all the troops would be gone before Lebanese parliamentary elections slated to begin in April, 2005.

Source: Xinhua