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Annan gets some helping hands putting on his coat as he arrives in Israel. (AP)
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners August 29, 2006 |
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| Did you hear the one about...? Annan and Defense Minister Amir Peretz exchange pleasantries before discussing the lack of progress of freeing kidnapped Israeli prisoners and what the Secretary General called Israel's "humiliation" of Lebanon. (AP) |
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U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan demanded Tuesday that Israel lift its air and sea blockade of Lebanon, but Israel said it would only remove the embargo once it is assured that forces deployed on Lebanon's borders can stop new weapons shipments to Hezbollah.
The dispute was the latest threat to the fragile cease-fire that ended 34 days of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas that left much of southern Lebanon and northern Israel devastated.
Annan arrived in Israel from Lebanon as part of an 11-day Mideast tour intended to shore-up the truce, help Lebanon recover from the fighting and secure the release of two Israeli soldiers whose capture by Hezbollah on July 12 sparked the fighting.
"We need to resolve the issue of the abducted soldiers very quickly," Annan said during a visit earlier Tuesday to a U.N. base in south Lebanon. "We need to deal with the lifting of the embargo -- sea, land and air -- which for the Lebanese is a humiliation and an infringement on their sovereignty."
In Israel, Annan met with Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz and spoke to him about lifting the blockade "as soon as possible in order to allow Lebanon to go on with normal commercial activities and also rebuild its economy," Annan said.
Israel has said it will only lift the blockade once it is assured that forces deployed on Lebanon's borders can prevent Hezbollah from importing new weapons to rearm itself for another round of fighting. Israel wants international forces to help patrol the Lebanon-Syria border to enforce an arms embargo on Hezbollah. Lebanon has said that its troops would be able to secure the border on their own.
Peretz said he told Annan about the importance of controlling the border "and the implementation of the embargo against the transfer of arms and ammunition between Syria and Lebanon."
Annan said Israel was responsible for most of the violations of the cease-fire over the past two weeks and appealed for everyone to work together to ensure the peace holds and "not risk another explosion in six years or 20 years."
Israeli troops are still occupying a security zone in southern Lebanon and have sporadically fought with Hezbollah guerrillas since the truce took effect Aug. 14. Israel says it won't leave until a sufficiently strong contingent of Lebanese and international troops arrives.
Annan said the U.N. hoped to have 5,000 soldiers in the region by Friday. That is double its prewar number, but still far short of the 15,000 international troops who are eventually supposed to patrol the border along with 15,000 Lebanese soldiers.
"Israel will pull out once there is a reasonable level of forces there," Peretz said without elaborating what that level would be.
As part of the effort to quickly get international troops on the ground, a five-ship Italian fleet set off for Lebanon on Tuesday carrying more than 800 soldiers to join the U.N. force.
"We will follow you with trepidation because it is a delicate mission of huge historic significance," Premier Romano Prodi told the soldiers. "But we will also follow you with pride and trust, knowing that although you carry arms, you're going to Lebanon exclusively to bring peace."
Annan was to meet Wednesday morning with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Olmert planned to call for "the unconditional return of our captives in Lebanon," his spokeswoman Miri Eisen said, referring to reserve soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. A third soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, was captured by Hamas-linked militants from an army post near the Gaza Strip on June 25.
The families of the three soldiers met with Annan soon after he arrived in Israel and said he told them he had no new information about the captives, and that there were no negotiations -- not even secret ones -- taking place.
"But the good news was that we got a personal pledge from the secretary general of the U.N. that he accepts the mission to get the three kidnapped soldiers home and that's a really big thing," Goldwasser's wife, Karnit, told Israel TV.
"(Hezbollah) must first of all give us a sign of life. (Annan) must act toward that. It's a moral demand that's basic in any negotiations," said Regev's brother, Benny.
Shalit's father, Noam, said he asked Annan to raise his son's issue when he goes to Damascus, where Hamas' leadership is based. Annan also was to travel to Iran on his trip. Iran and Syria are the main patrons of Hezbollah.
In Beirut, veteran civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson, on a mission to secure the soldiers' release, and no doubt Arab prisoners as well, said he was told they were alive during his meetings in Damascus with Syrian President Bashar Assad and Khaled Mashaal, Hamas' political leader.
"The Hamas leadership says that the soldier they are holding is alive and well," Jackson said, apparently unable to remember the soldier's name.
"The president (Assad) believes that the two held somewhere by Hezbollah are alive," he added, helpfully.
Before traveling to Israel, Annan visited U.N. peacekeepers in Naqoura, about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) north of the Israeli border, and the base for the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL.
Annan was briefed by French Maj. Gen. Alain Pellegrini, the UNIFIL commander, and other top officials, then reviewed an honor guard of U.N. troops in blue berets standing at attention on the lawn inside the U.N.'s white-walled compound.
He laid a wreath at a monument for nearly 300 peacekeepers killed in Lebanon since UNIFIL deployed here in 1978. Muslim and Christian clergymen said prayers, and the U.N. chief stood in silence in front of a display of portraits of those killed, including four UNIFIL members killed in a July 25 Israeli airstrike on their base in Khiam.
Annan told the troops their role was something that has been "misunderstood and criticized" and that they were "never given credit for the wonderful things they have done and the sacrifices they have made."
He said much could be done to speed up the handover of south Lebanon from Israeli troops to multinational ones. "With good will it can be done faster than we are doing. On our side, we are trying to get in the additional reinforcements as quickly as we can," he said.
The European Union has pledged 6,900 additional forces for UNIFIL and EU diplomats on Tuesday called for Muslim nations to make substantial contributions to the force, despite Israel's refusal to allow soldiers from countries that do not recognize it to take part.
EU diplomats said offers from Muslim countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Bangladesh -- none of which have ties with Israel -- were important to the force's success. "As broad a spectrum of countries as possible should contribute, including Muslim countries," said Teemu Tanner, chairman of the EU's Political and Security Committee, which handles crisis management issues.
The AP contributed to this report.
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