Nambiar for UN action to ease W Asia situation

United Nations, Jul 22: Regretting that his meetings with leaders of Lebanon and Israel found ''serious obstacles'' to a comprehensive ceasefire in the violence-hit region, senior Indian diplomat and former envoy to the United Nations Vijay N Nambiar has called upon the Security Council to unite urgently to reduce the devastating toll on civilians and develop the framework for a political solution.

''The Secretary-General and the Secretariat are working on the political, peacekeeping and humanitarian fronts to respond to this deep regional crisis,'' Mr Nambiar, who led a three-member team of veteran UN officials for wide-ranging talks in the region under the auspices of Secretary-General Kofi Annan, told the Council yesterday at the beginning of a day-long open meeting on the escalation of violence.

Mr Nambiar, a noted Indian diplomat, had earlier been his country's envoy to the United Nations.

Outlining the extent of the destruction, which had already claimed the lives of at least 300 Lebanese and 34 Israelis while injuring over 500 Lebanese and 200 Israelis, he said, ''We would welcome a united stance by the Security Council.'' Over the course of his July 14-19 mission, which comprised UN envoy to West Asia Alvaro de Soto and Terje Roed-Larsen, Mr Nambiar said he met with Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, as well as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and several other senior Israeli officials. The three-member team also met with other regional leaders.

He recalled that Siniora said he was not in a position to negotiate a ceasefire himself as he had no involvement in the initiation or the continuation of Hizbollah's attacks, which his government had disavowed.

He said Israeli activities were making it more difficult to fulfil Security Council demands to extend his government's control over its territory.

Israeli leaders stressed Hizbollah's responsibility for initiating the conflict and broadening it through its rocket attacks against Israeli towns and villages. And they say military operations would continue until Hizbollah was seriously weakened.

Despite such difficult negotiating positions, Mr Nambiar saw two vital political goals for the international community - the first of which is to secure, urgently, some form of cessation of hostilities.

''This is essential so that the captives are protected and released, humanitarian access is assured, civilian casualties are dramatically reduced, and the political space is opened to negotiate a full and durable ceasefire,'' he said.

The second is to develop quickly the elements of a political framework that would pave the way for such a ceasefire, some of which had been suggested by the UN chief on Thursday in his briefing to the Council and included a strengthened international peacekeeping force.

''A political package is needed that gives the governments of Israel and Lebanon confidence that the horrors each country is now enduring will not be repeated,'' he said, proposing that such a package should ensure the end of the Hizbollah threat against Israel, and the full respect by all parties of the Lebanese government's sovereignty and control.

Turning to the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, where at least 147 Palestinians and five Israelis have been killed in violence following the capture of an Israeli soldier on the Gaza border June 25, Mr Nambiar said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was particularly concerned with the need for a political path forward.

Mr Abbas felt it was important to ''de-link'' the crisis in Lebanon from the crisis in the Palestinian areas, since he thought that the current violence in the country to the north represented, among others, an attempt by non-Palestinian extremists to ''hijack leadership'' on the Palestinian issue, Mr Nambiar said.

''He left us with a powerful impression that the international community has to assist the parties to develop a credible political framework that can show the path towards what the G-8 calls the root cause of the problems of the region, the absence of a comprehensive West Asia peace,'' Mr Nambiar said, referring to the group of dominant industrial countries which recently concluded a summit in the Russian city of St Petersburg.

UNI

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