UN's Annan wants stronger Lebanon force with EU

BRUSSELS, July 18 (Reuters) UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called today for a bigger, better armed and more robust international force to stabilise southern Lebanon and buy time for the Lebanese government to disarm Hizbollah guerrillas.

Shrugging off U.S. and Israeli reluctance, Annan said he expected European nations to contribute troops to the proposed force in a bid to end fighting between Israel and Hizbollah and prevent a wider Middle East conflagration.

''It is urgent that the international community acts to make a difference on the ground,'' Annan said as Israel pounded Lebanon for a seventh day in response to the kidnapping of two soldiers and a barrage of rocket attacks on northern Israel.

He told reporters after meeting European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso that the proposed U.N. force would have to be more effective than the current U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon which has been unable to keep peace on the Israeli-Lebanese border.

''The force will be larger, the way I see it, much larger than the 2,000-man force we have there,'' Annan said. ''I would expect a force that will have a modified and different concept of operation and with different capabilities.

''I would expect contributions from European countries and countries from other regions,'' he added.

Both Barroso and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said they supported the idea and a number of EU countries were ready to contribute.

The United States and Israel have cast doubt on the idea, with Washington questioning how such a force would restrain Hizbollah guerrillas from attacking Israel, and Israeli officials saying it is premature.

WHO WOULD DISARM? Solana, who visited Lebanon on Sunday, was set to return to the Middle East for talks in Israel, Egypt and the Palestinian territories after conferring on crisis management efforts with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice by telephone.

Annan said he would put a package of proposals to the U.N.

Security Council once a fact-finding mission, currently in Israel, reported back to him probably after returning to Lebanon and visiting Syria.

In response to questions, he suggested it was the Lebanese government, not the proposed force, which would eventually have to disarm Hizbollah, as provided for by a past U.N. Security Council resolution, after a breathing space.

The stabilisation force would ''give the government of Lebanon time to ... organise and prepare to eventually extend its authority throughout the territory including the south, and then give also time for them to sort out the question of the disarmament of the militia,'' Annan said.

Israel launched a major offensive against Hizbollah and Lebanese civilian infrastructure after the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers last week in a cross-border raid in which eight Israeli troops were killed.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, raised a series of questions about how a new force would be more effective than UNIFIL and who would disarm Hizbollah.

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