UN Chief Calls for Cease-Fire
    By Warren Hoge
    The New York Times

    Thursday 20 July 2006

    United Nations - Secretary General Kofi Annan called today for an immediate end to hostilities between Israel and Lebanon, saying it was necessary to prevent further deaths of civilians, enable aid to reach the injured and work to begin on longer term peace.

    Speaking to the Security Council, he said, "Despite our assessment that a full cease-fire remains difficult to achieve at this time, I remain of the view that the international community must make its position clear on the need for an immediate cessation of hostilities, and a far greater and more credible effort by Israel to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure while the conditions for such a cessation are urgently developed."

    He said that the first step should be to transfer the captured Israeli soldiers to the government of Lebanon, under Red Cross auspices, which would then return them to Israel.

    Another necessary step was placing an expanded international peacekeeping force on the Lebanese side of the border with Israel to help stabilize the situation and assist the Lebanese government in gaining control over its own territory.

    He said that while Israel says it has no quarrel with the government of Lebanon and is taking precautions to avoid injuring noncombatants, a number of its actions had killed Lebanese civilians and soldiers and badly damaged the country's infrastructure.

    "While Hezbollah's actions are deplorable and Israel has a right to defend itself, the excessive use of force is to be condemned," he said.

    He said that the cause of the crisis was "Hezbollah's provocative attack on July 12" and that he was convinced that the government of Lebanon had no advance knowledge of it.

    "Whatever other agendas they may serve," he said, "Hezbollah's actions, which it portrays as defending Palestinian and Lebanese interests, in fact do neither.

    "On the contrary, they hold an entire nation hostage, set back prospects for negotiations for a negotiation of a comprehensive Middle East peace."

    He said that a three-man mission he had dispatched to the region last week had returned Wednesday night with a stark assessment. "Let me be frank with the council," he said. "The mission's assessment is that there are serious obstacles to reaching a cease-fire, or even to diminishing the violence quickly."

    He said Israel has told the mission its objectives in Lebanon were more far reaching than the return of its captured soldiers and that its aim was to end the threat posed by Hezbollah. "The mission was informed that the operation is not yet approaching the achievement of this objective," Mr. Annan said.

    He said that Israeli operations made it impossible for the United Nations to make any contact with an estimated 500,000 people in urgent need in southern Lebanon.

    He said that the 2,000-member United Nations peacekeeping force would not be operational in another 24 hours if it couldn't bring in food and water for its own personnel.

    "I repeat," he said, "hostilities must stop. But while they continue, it is imperative to establish safe corridors for humanitarian workers and relief supplies to reach the civilian population."

    In reactions afterwards, Nouhad Mahmoud, a Lebanese special envoy to the United Nations, said, "Our first impression is very, very good."

    But Dan Gillerman, the ambassador of Israel, complained that "the three key elements of this were not addressed - terror, Syria and Iran. Without addressing terror," he said, "there will be no cessation of hostilities."

    He said the time for diplomacy would come only "once we have brought terror to the point where it ceases to terrorize us and the region."

    John R. Bolton, the American ambassador, said that any cease-fire should be a "cessation that will take place as part of a comprehensive solution that lays a real foundation for peace."

    "It is just not appropriate to talk about a cease-fire that is the alpha and omega of the situation, and in fact the secretary-general himself said that you want to have a fundamental transformation. The last thing you want to do is fall back on business as usual."

    He added, "How do you get a cease-fire between one entity which is the government of a democratically elected state and another entity which is a terrorist gang, no one has yet explained."

    Commenting on Mr. Annan's suggestion for turning over the captured Israeli soldiers, he said, "Hezbollah has to give the kidnap victims up, that's an absolute precondition. As for the precise mechanism, a number of ways could be worked out and that could be one of them."