Syria warns US ambassador against meddling

BEIRUT (AP) -- U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford should stop meddling in Syrian affairs if he wants to avoid more ‘rotten eggs’ attacks in the future, a state-run Syrian newspaper warned on Sunday.

The Al Baath newspaper, a mouthpiece of the Syrian regime, accused Ford of supporting armed anti-government groups in Syria and said his meddling will not be tolerated.

Supporters of President Bashar Assad on Thursday pelted Ford -- an outspoken critic of the Syrian regime’s brutal crackdown on the country’s six-month-old uprising -- with eggs as he visited a prominent Syrian opposition figure in Damascus. He was trapped in the office for about three hours by the hostile pro-government protesters outside until Syrian security forces arrived to escort him out.

“If you want to avoid rotten eggs, you should advise your country to stop its blatant interference in Syrian affairs and its feverish efforts to seek sanctions against Syria from the U.N. Security Council,” the newspaper said.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the White House said the assault was part of a campaign to intimidate diplomats looking into the Assad’s government’s brutal repression of pro-reform demonstrators. The Obama administration summoned Syria’s ambassador in Washington to hear formal U.S. condemnation of the assault.

In comments posted on the embassy’s Facebook page, Ford said Thursday’s attack was not limited to eggs and tomatoes.

“Protesters threw concrete blocks at the windows and hit the cars with iron bars. One person jumped on the hood of the car, tried to kick in the windshield and then jumped on the roof,” Ford wrote.