Lebanon demands prisoner swap

CAIRO (Reuters) - Lebanon said on Wednesday two Israeli soldiers captured by Hizbollah would not be released unless Israel was prepared to discuss a prisoner swap.

The unconditional release of the soldiers, whose seizure by the Lebanese Hizbollah guerrilla group in a cross-border raid on July 12 sparked a 34-day war, is called for in the preamble to a U.N. Security Council resolution that brought about a ceasefire.

The same preamble "encourages" the settling of the issue of Lebanese prisoners detained in Israel.

"Neither of the two Israeli soldiers will be released unless there are negotiations over the exchange of Lebanese and Israeli prisoners," Lebanese Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh told reporters at an Arab foreign ministers' meeting in Cairo.

Hizbollah has two ministers in the Lebanese government.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said Hizbollah's continued detention of the soldiers violated the Security Council resolution, and that Lebanon must act to release them unconditionally.

"U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, on which the ceasefire is based, calls unequivocally for an unconditional and immediate release of the soldiers being held hostage," he said.

"The continued holding of our soldiers is a grave violation of the ceasefire. A continuation of this violation will have consequences."

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Monday Israel and Hizbollah had agreed to his appointment of an envoy to work for the release of the soldiers.

Israeli officials said Annan's role was to secure the release of the soldiers, not to mediate. Hizbollah gave a cautious response, backing only indirect negotiations to secure a prisoner exchange.

At the meeting in Cairo, Salloukh said earlier Lebanon would break an Israeli air and sea blockade if the Jewish state did not lift it within 48 hours. He did not say how.

Israel later said it would lift the blockade at 1500 GMT on Thursday, handing over control to international forces.

(Additional reporting by Jerusalem bureau)

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