US, Britain should take back seat over Lebanon: Annan deputy

Mark Malloch Brown told the Financial Times newspaper that the two countries, as "the team that led on Iraq", were poorly placed to lead efforts to end the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that has raged on for more than three weeks.

He said Britain should take a back seat in dealing with the conflict, while the United States should allow other countries to share the lead in the ongoing diplomatic efforts.

"It's not helpful for it again to appear to be the team that led on Iraq," Malloch Brown said, adding that he would like to see France, Egypt and Jordan playing a bigger role in ongoing efforts to broker a ceasefire.

"This cannot be perceived as a US-UK deal with Israel."

Ambassadors from the five UN Security Council permanent members and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan held what were described as "frank discussions" on the Middle East crisis in New York on Tuesday.

But the five -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- were unable to agree on a resolution amid differences over the sequence of any ceasefire and the deployment of an international force.

The European Union also Tuesday failed to reach consensus on calling for an immediate ceasefire, preferring instead to demand an "immediate cessation of hostilities".

Britain and Germany, backed by The Netherlands, rejected a draft compromise by the EU's Finnish presidency calling for an "immediate ceasefire" between Israel and Hezbollah, according to diplomats.

Source

About headlines and content that has changed after it was added to this site - see disclaimer here

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.