July 26, 2006, 12:59PM
U.S., allies divided over cease-fire terms
By KATHERINE SHRADER Associated Press Writer
© 2006 The Associated PressROME — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged the international community on Wednesday to work quickly to end the "spasms of violence" rocking the Middle East, but the U.S. remained isolated from most of its allies by insisting that any cease fire address the region's long-term problems.
"There is much work to do and everyone has a role to play," said Rice, joined by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and diplomats from European and moderate Arab countries attending a daylong conference on the Mideast crisis.
The policy conference came after two weeks of fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah militia in which hundreds of Lebanese have been killed and more than half a million more have become refugees. Hezbollah has inflicted dozens of Israeli casualties by firing hundreds of rockets into northern Israel and in firefights with Israeli troops.
"We all committed to dedicated and urgent action to try and bring about an end to this violence that indeed would be sustainable" and leave the Lebanese government in full control of its territory, Rice told reporters. South Lebanon has been controlled by Hezbollah guerrillas for years.
Rice said participants in the meeting agreed on the need for an international force in south Lebanon under a U.N. mandate that would have "a strong and robust capability to help bring about peace, to help provide the ability for humanitarian efforts to go forward and to bring an end to the violence."
But Rice conceded that it would take further meetings for countries to agree on details on precisely how that force would operate and what its mission would be. And as Wednesday's session ended, it was clear that differences also remained including how, and under what conditions, a cease-fire could be imposed on Israel and Hezbollah.
At a separate news conference, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said he regretted that the delegates had not agreed to a joint statement urging an immediate cease-fire. He said the French wanted to call for an "immediate cessation of hostilities," but Rice insisted that it say only to "work immediately for the cessation of hostilities," and she won out.
In Washington, the White House worked put a positive face on the meeting.
"If the talks broke down, they wouldn't have come out with a joint statement that showed that they are knitted up on the key items," said Press Secretary Tony Snow.
He said the statement released there tracks with the diplomacy the U.S. has been conducting and said that two U.S. envoys to the Middle East, Elliot Abrams and David Welch, will remain in the region while Rice travels on to Malaysia for meetings on Asian issues.
In a sign that negotiations were continuing, Rice flew to Malaysia accompanied by Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign and security affairs chief. Solana was proposing a rapid reaction force for south Lebanon built around French, German and Spanish troops, supplemented by forces from Turkey, the Netherlands, Canada and Arab states such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, EU officials told The Associated Press in Brussels.
Before the session ended, a diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity said the international diplomats gathered here had been struggling to reach a consensus on a formal statement about the violence. That caused the briefing by Rice, Annan and others to be delayed by more than 90 minutes.
The diplomat said the sticking point was language about the terms under which fighting would end. The source insisted on anonymity because discussions on a conference resolution were still ongoing.
Earlier, Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora gave an impassioned speech that prodded the international leaders to continue working, Rice said, saying he put "a human face" on the crisis.
She stressed that Saniora himself has said "there must be one authority over military force" and the international community will support the Lebanese government and work with it in achieving that.
Rice said she had had private discussions with Saniora here _ and separately with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert by telephone _ but declined to reveal the details.
"The goal here is to see how the United States can contribute to end this violence so the Lebanese people and the Israeli people can live in peace," she said.
In a statement at the start of the conference, Annan called for an immediate cessation of hostilities, exhorting Hezbollah to stop its "deliberate targeting of Israeli population centers" and for Israel to end all bombing, blockades and ground operations.
The Bush administration has called for a framework that can lead to a long-term peace, and Annan said the cession of hostilities could lead to that, cautioning against getting too caught up in the sequence of how a cessation of hostilities would happen.
Soon after Rice arrived in Rome late Tuesday, word came that an Israeli airstrike had hit a U.N. observation post in south Lebanon, killing at least two U.N. personnel. Two others were feared dead. The attack prompted Annan to demand an Israeli investigation into the incident, which he called "apparently deliberate." It could further fuel international demands for a quick end to the fighting.
Olmert expressed "deep regret" over the deaths of the peacekeepers in a telephone call to Annan on Wednesday, according to a statement from Olmert's office.