Annan to meet Assad to bolster Lebanon truce

Thu Aug 31, 7:18 PM ET

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, on a whirlwind peace drive in the Middle East, was set to meet President Bashar al-Assad on Friday to seek Syria's help in shoring up a truce between Israel and Lebanon's Hizbollah.

Annan has already renewed his calls for Israel to quickly lift a blockade of Lebanon and withdraw fully from the country as soon as 5,000 U.N. peacekeepers are in the south.

He will also push Assad to stop Syria's help for Hizbollah. Israel and others accuse Syria of funneling arms to Hizbollah.

Annan has visited Lebanon and Israel and met Jordan's King Abdullah as part of his drive to fully implement U.N. Resolution 1701, which governs the ceasefire between Hizbollah and Israel.

Israel launched a war after Hizbollah guerrillas captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight in a July 12 raid. The 34-day conflict cost the lives of nearly 1,200 people in Lebanon, mainly civilians, and 157 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

Annan met Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem in Damascus on Thursday.

"The need to preserve the ceasefire and withdrawal of the Israeli forces from southern Lebanon was affirmed during the meeting ... as well as the need for the United Nations to work on securing a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East," the official Syrian news agency said.

Syrian leaders have been angered by an Israeli demand for international troops to deploy on the Lebanese-Syrian border to stop arms smuggling to Hizbollah.

Lebanon, which has sent 8,600 soldiers to patrol the border, says it has no plans to ask U.N. troops to join them.

Annan said he hoped to double very quickly the 2,500 U.N. peacekeepers already in south Lebanon, where the first big contingent of 800 Italian troops was due at the weekend.

The U.N. resolution envisages sending a force of up to 15,000 to south Lebanon by November 4 to help a similar number of Lebanese troops police a weapons-free border zone.

Israel rejected a call by Annan to lift its air and sea blockade of Lebanon, saying it would end the seven-week-old siege only when all aspects of the ceasefire were in place.

It says the sea and air embargo is designed to prevent Hizbollah from getting arms supplies from Iran or Syria.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert also told Annan he would not withdraw Israeli troops fully from southern Lebanon until the full implementation of the truce, which took effect on August 14.

Israeli troops have been gradually withdrawing for the past two weeks and the army said it held less than a third of the land it occupied during the war. "The rest of the territory was handed over to UNIFIL and the Lebanese army," a spokesman said.

Lebanese troops, accompanied by U.N. peacekeepers, took up posts on the border with Israel for the first time in decades.

Annan described Israel's blockade of Lebanon as "unsustainable," saying: "It is important that it is lifted and not be seen as collective punishment of the Lebanese people."

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