US open to NATO-led force in Lebanon: Bolton

Washington, July 24: The United States is open to a NATO-led force keeping the peace on Lebanon's southern border with Israel, although using US forces has not been discussed, a senior Bush administration official said today.

Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said his country could accept a NATO peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon to ensure Hizbollah is removed from the border. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had earlier said calls for an international force were premature.

''It's a new idea, we'll certainly take it seriously,'' John Bolton, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said in a taped interview with CNN's ''Late Edition.'' ''We have been looking carefully at a multinational force perhaps authorized by the Security Council, but not a UN-helmeted force,'' he said.

However, Bolton said at this stage the Bush administration has not contemplated US troops being part of an international force that tries to restore peace along the Israeli-Lebanon border after 12 days of fierce fighting.

The conflict erupted after Hizbollah crossed the Israeli border and captured two soldiers and killed eight others.

Israel responded by pounding Lebanon with air strikes and has conducted some ground assaults in southern Lebanon.

UN emergency relief coordinator, Jan Egeland, who visited Beirut today, said between half a million and a million people were in need of international assistance in Lebanon.

Egeland said Israel's extensive bombing of Beirut's crowded Haret Hreik neighborhood, where Hizbollah had its headquarters, violated ''humanitarian law.''

Bush to meet Saudis

President George W Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are scheduled to meet later today with Arab allies to discuss efforts to calm the hostilities.

They will meet at the White House with Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, head of its national security council.

Rice is slated to leave today evening for Israel and the Palestinian territories and on Wednesday will go to Rome to discuss the crisis with European and Arab officials, including from Lebanon.

A NATO official said there has been no discussion until now of any NATO role. The official cited efforts to expand the existing UN peacekeeping force already in southern Lebanon rather than ''seek to create new structures or engage other institutions.'' US officials have resisted calls for an immediate ceasefire, arguing that a long-term plan is needed to resolve the conflict, shoring up the Lebanese government and preventing Hizbollah from attacking Israel.

''I think we all need to be creative but we need to keep the idea of the force within the larger long-term political solution,'' Bolton said.

US lawmakers said that NATO was an option though US troops should not be a part of that force.

''It would not be a good idea for the United States troops to be in Lebanon,'' Sen Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on CNN.

Sen Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, echoed Lugar's comments but also said Israel may have gone too far in its attacks in Lebanon.

''I also believe they probably went farther than they had to go here,'' Dodd told CNN. ''And a good friend -- and we are good friends of Israel -- needs to remind its friends from time to time when they overreach.''

Reuters

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