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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz in Jerusalem Tuesday. (AP)
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners July 27, 2006 |
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Most Europeans want Israel to halt its offensive against Hezbollah immediately, while the United States is willing to give the Jewish state more time to punish the terrorist group.
The two positions were on the line Wednesday, holding up agreement at a high-level Mideast conference in Rome on a plan to stop the fighting immediately.
The top U.S. and European officials did agree on the creation of a multinational force to keep the peace, and on humanitarian and reconstruction assistance for Lebanon. They said there would be quick follow-up meetings to establish the force.
The foreign ministers and other senior officials from 15 nations, as well as U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and representatives from the European Union and the World Bank, agreed in Rome on a declaration that expressed "deep concern" for the high number of civilian casualties in Lebanon, where government officials say hundreds of people have been killed.
"There was a strong call for the cease-fire. There certainly couldn't have been an order because we knew that going into the meeting there were different positions on that," Italian Premier Romano Prodi said after the conference in an interview with The Associated Press.
"But we came very close to reaching an agreement on a cease-fire. There was a push forward," Prodi said.
British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said she believed a cease-fire still could be agreed as early as next week.
"I would say days, not weeks. I would hope maybe even early next week we could be in the (United Nations) Security Council," Beckett told Britain's Sky News in Rome. "We need a political agreement to underpin a cease-fire, everybody is determined to work for that political agreement as fast as they can."
Deep differences in an approach to the crisis, however, were abundantly clear.
In the presence of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema alluded to the discord in post-conference comments. He said many participants appealed for an immediate and unconditional truce "to reach, with utmost urgency, a cease-fire that puts an end to the current violence and hostilities."
Rice deflected pressure to lean on Israel to end its 2-week-old offensive, insisting that any cease-fire must be "sustainable" and that there could be "no return to the status quo ante."
Yet Rice rejected the notion that she was isolated at the conference, stressing the unity among world leaders.
Briefing reporters en route to Malaysia for an Asia regional conference, Rice instead said the diplomats agreed that a sustainable cease-fire is urgently needed, the weak democratic government in Lebanon must be strengthened to help it secure its entire territory, and an international peacekeeping force should be formed to help provide stability.
"I thought that a way forward got a big boost today in the consensus around that table," she said, including the agreement on the need for an international force. "That is an extremely important element in getting this resolved."
Rice said, "There were a lot of countries calling for an immediate cease-fire. There were several countries that did not." She declined to identify them.
"I, on behalf of the United States, urged very strongly that it doesn't do any good to raise false hopes about something that is not going to take place," she said.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, who issued a dramatic appeal for peace, had difficultly containing his disappointment. He said the Rome conference made "some progress," but pleaded with world leaders to keep working toward a cease-fire. "Scores of people are dying," he said, bringing Lebanon "to its knees."
The Lebanese leader recognized that Israel's offensive had been sparked by Hezbollah's incursion across the "blue line" -- the U.N.-recognized border -- when it killed eight soldiers and kidnapped two. But Saniora added that the military campaign was "disproportionate."
The Western-leaning moderate also appealed to Israel to enter a peace process with all its Arab neighbors -- striking a markedly different tone from many previous Lebanese leaders.
The Rome conference did clinch a consensus on establishing a new multinational force for southern Lebanon -- one far tougher than the existing, three-decade-old UNIFIL operation which has lacked a mandate to prevent hostilities.
"What we agreed upon is that there should be an international force under a U.N. mandate that will have a strong and robust capability to help bring about peace, to help provide the ability for humanitarian efforts to go forward and to bring an end to the violence," Rice told reporters.
Prodi put a positive spin on the conference, saying in the interview that "what could be achieved was achieved."
Prodi insisted Washington was not fully isolated with its insistence that a cease-fire should accompany a durable peace, including disarming of the Hezbollah militias. He said the United States received support from Britain and acceptance from Germany that an immediate truce was not in the works.
Ultimately, Washington's position seemed sustainable largely because the others -- despite shock at the scale of destruction and hundreds of civilians killed -- largely supported the goal of disarming Hezbollah and extending the control of the Lebanese government to the south, which the militia has in effect controlled for years.
D'Alema urged Hezbollah to release the Israeli soldiers whose capture helped ignite the latest hostilities.
"It's a gesture that could be done while asking Israel to make the same step, but it could be a way to bring the end of hostilities closer," D'Alema told Italian state TV late Wednesday.
Prodi said the force must be "sizable" and drawn from a number of countries. He pledged that Italy would commit troops if it has a U.N. mandate.
Israel, which did not attend, said it expected those at the Rome conference to follow up and take action to support Lebanon's army and turn it into a force capable of disarming Hezbollah.
Israeli officials have expressed support in principle for the deployment of an international force, recognizing that the weak Lebanese government could not likely subdue the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hezbollah without assistance.
Rice said the force's mandate would be discussed "over the next ... several days." She added: "We also have asked that those meetings be held urgently so that force can be put together."
In Brussels, EU officials said a meeting of European foreign ministers would be held Tuesday to discuss the violence.
The AP contributed to this report.
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