POLITICS: Arab Ministers Argue Lebanese Case at U.N.

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Mithre J. Sandrasagra

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 8 2006 (IPS) - Following a meeting of 17 Arab foreign ministers Monday in Beirut, a delegation from the 22-member League of Arab States arrived at the United Nations Tuesday to meet with Secretary-General Kofi Annan and address the U.N. Security Council on the ongoing conflict in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah.

Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the League of Arab States, Sheik Hamed Bin Jassim Bin Jabr Al-Thani, foreign minister of Qatar, and Sheikh Abdullah Ben Zayed Al Nahyan, foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, attempted to mobilise support for the Lebanese position here today.

“What makes me less pessimistic now is that the views of my government have been heard by the members of the Security Council,” said Tarek Mitri, acting foreign minister of Lebanon, following the Security Council meetings.

The Qatari request to meet with the Security Council was perceived on Monday by some diplomats in New York as a defiant move against the United States and France, who have been trying since Saturday to push through their draft proposal aimed at establishing a truce between Israel and Hezbollah and laying out terms for a political settlement.

After Tuesday’s session, a vote on the draft proposal that was supposed to have taken place early in the week will be held during the weekend at best.

“Taking the Arab League position into the resolution will strengthen it,” Al-Thani stressed to reporters here.

According to Moussa, the Security Council will “consider our amendments, but it remains to be seen if we will reach a consensus. We hope that by tomorrow we will see the skeleton of a new draft.” This is just the beginning, he stressed.

“The Israeli ambassador did not convince me that destroying bridges, roads, schools and hospitals is irrelevant,” he added following the Security Council meetings.

“Nobody in our region is convinced by the Israeli logic,” he continued.

At the meeting in Beirut, Arab foreign ministers backed the Lebanese government’s amendments to the draft resolution tabled by France and the United States, which include the withdrawal of about 10,000 Israeli troops.

The current draft does not set a timetable for Israel’s withdrawal.

“We have no intention of staying in Lebanon,” Gillerman told reporters, “but we will not leave and create a vacuum to be filled by Hezbollah again.” In response to questions about the circumstances under which Israel would withdraw, Gillerman stressed that Israel must make sure that the “forces of terror are not rearmed by their masters, Iran and Syria.”

Israel has said that it will not leave southern Lebanon until an international force arrives and two soldiers taken by Hezbollah on Jul. 12 are released.

“We will withdraw once there is a political solution and forces are in place,” Gillerman said Tuesday.

The Arab League backs a seven-point peace plan put forward by Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, Moussa stressed. That plan calls for an Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon, the expansion of a U.N. peacekeeping force in the area, the deployment of the Lebanese army to the border and the disarming of Hezbollah guerrillas.

In response to requests to gauge Hezbollah’s current position, Moussa said that, “The Lebanese plan reflects all the political forces and parties in Lebanon, it is the reflection of the Lebanese collective will.”

Siniora said Monday that the current draft would do little to stop the violence that has taken the lives of more than 900 Lebanese and displaced 900,000. “It barely leads to a ceasefire,” he said.

“It is obvious to us that a draft that is not favourable to the Lebanese side should not be adopted,” said Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s ambassador to the U.N.

Russia is a permanent member of the Security Council and could potentially veto a resolution that it feels is incomplete.

Churkin had called on Lebanon to carefully consider the resolution, since it contains many provisions that satisfy Lebanon’s demands, including a call for a ceasefire. But Russia adjusted its stance when Beirut rejected the resolution.

It makes no sense to adopt a resolution, that “will lead to a prolongation of the conflict and of the violence,” Churkin warned.

“The resolution provides for initiating a political process that will result in the withdrawal of Israeli troops, but one must carefully analyse it to see this,” Churkin said in response to Lebanese arguments. “Besides, the resolution does not offer a 100 percent guarantee that this will happen soon.”

“Efforts are being undertaken – and we are taking part in these – to make this draft more acceptable to Lebanon. It is hard to predict when that will happen, when the right form of words will be found that the Israeli side will agree to,” Churkin said.

France and the United States said on Monday that they might consider making changes to their draft U.N. resolution, which Lebanon has rejected.

“The Lebanese demand that the resolution say in unambiguous terms that the withdrawal of Israeli troops must begin right after ceasefire,” Churkin said. “I personally believe that’s a new element and the authors of the new resolution and members of the Security Council should examine it scrupulously.”

“Russia spoke in favour of an immediate ceasefire right after the outbreak of hostilities and that’s why we supported any steps in that direction,” Churkin added.

Diplomatic efforts to end the conflict faltered after Lebanon objected to a draft U.N. Security Council resolution that called for an end to hostilities but would leave Israeli forces temporarily in charge of a swathe of territory in southern Lebanon.

The U.S. is unlikely to give much ground on most of the main Lebanese demands.

“Whatever happens in the U.N., we must not create a vacuum into which Hezbollah and its sponsors are able to move more weapons,” U.S. President George W. Bush told reporters at his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

But Beirut said Tuesday that it is ready to deploy 15,000 troops in southern Lebanon to replace the 10,000 that it wants Israel to pull out.

“I think we can achieve what the Lebanese government wants to see as well as what the Israeli government wants to see, which is the government of Lebanon back in full charge of its own territory without leaving a vacuum in which the Hezbollah militia can move in,” British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Tuesday.

“No international resolution will be durable unless it recognises Lebanon’s sovereignty and obligates Israel to stop its aggression and withdraw beyond the blue line and enable the Lebanese legitimate government to exercise control over all its territories,” Al Nohyan said.

As the talks continued in New York, exchanges of fire continued, according to the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). Hezbollah fired rockets in large numbers from various locations and the Israeli Defence Forces continued shelling and aerial bombardment throughout UNIFIL’s area of operations.