Annan prods Israel to lift Lebanon siege

Thu Aug 31, 10:27 AM ET

DEAD SEA, Jordan (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday renewed his calls for Israel to lift its blockade of Lebanon swiftly and to withdraw fully from the country as soon as 5,000 U.N. peacekeepers are in the south.

Annan, who traveled to Syria after talks in Jordan, is trying to bolster a truce ushered in by a U.N. resolution that halted a 34-day war between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas.

"I expect -- and I did make this clear to the Israeli authorities -- that when the international forces have reached 5,000 and are deployed to the south with the Lebanese (army), it is time for them to withdraw and withdraw completely," Annan told a news conference after talks with Jordan's King Abdullah.

He said in a radio interview he hoped the U.N. peacekeepers would be in place "within a week or 10 days."

Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, whose nation is set to be UNIFIL's biggest contributor, said Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres had told him that Israel would begin pulling out its troops once 5,000 U.N. troops were in place.

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.

Annan described Israel's 7-week-old blockade of Lebanon as "unsustainable," saying: "It is important that it is lifted and not be seen as collective punishment of the Lebanese people."

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert rebuffed Annan's demands on Wednesday, saying Israel would keep the blockade and stay in Lebanon until all other terms of the U.N. resolution were met.

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

Picking up a proposal Annan made in Beirut, a senior Israeli political source said Israel would discuss freeing Lebanese prisoners for two soldiers captured by Hizbollah, if the two were handed over to the Beirut government. Israel has previously insisted on their unconditional release.

EMERGENCY AID

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, seeking aid pledges of $500 million at an international donor meeting in Stockholm, said none of the funds would be distributed by Hizbollah.

Sweden has organized the conference so donors can pledge funds for urgent relief needs such as house building and clearing unexploded bombs, ahead of a bigger gathering later this year on longer-term reconstruction efforts.

"Lebanon, which only seven weeks ago was full of hope and promise, has been torn to shreds by destruction, displacement, dispossession, desolation, and death," Siniora told the donors, assuring them the money would all go to the government.

Hizbollah has begun its own compensation and rebuilding scheme with funds widely assumed to have come from Iran.

Israel launched the war after Hizbollah captured the two soldiers in a July 12 raid. The Shi'ite Muslim group offered at the outset to swap them for Lebanese prisoners.

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 is 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.

German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung said he expected Germany to contribute more than 1,200 troops to the U.N. force.

Annan was due to start talks with Syrian leaders 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.

The conflict cost the lives of nearly 1,200 people in Lebanon, mainly civilians, and 157 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

Most Israelis want an independent investigation into the conduct of the war and the army's failure to crush Hizbollah, a poll showed. Olmert has ordered only a low-level inquiry.

After his talks with King Abdullah and Foreign Minister Abdelelah al-Khatib on the shores of the Dead Sea, Annan called for the revival of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

There has been no let-up in violence in the Palestinian territories, largely overshadowed by the fighting in Lebanon.

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli troops killed a militant commander, while Palestinian gunmen in the Gaza Strip renewed rocket strikes they had mostly suspended during the Lebanon war.

(Additional reporting by Beirut, Jerusalem, Damascus, Rome and Stockholm bureaux)

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