UN calls meeting to start planning Lebanon force

UNITED NATIONS, July 28 (Reuters) UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has invited countries interested in participating in an international force for Lebanon to gather in New York on Monday to begin planning.

''The time has come for us to really be action-oriented and (seek) concrete steps that can be taken to help the protagonists and the civilians who are caught in the middle'' of the fighting,'' Annan said today.

Governments also were discussing a possible meeting of the UN Security Council at the ministerial level next week, he said, to begin work on a resolution addressing the fighting between Israel and Hizbollah.

''There has been talk about it,'' Annan said. ''But I don't think any date or time has been fixed yet.'' While many potential troop-contributing countries have been invited, UN officials declined to identify them.

Although Washington has ruled out offering troops, the United States would be represented by Nicholas Burns, the number three State Department official, diplomatic sources said.

''We believe strongly that there is broad international interest in doing this and that certainly there will be sufficient numbers of contributions available to make that force be a viable, robust force,'' US State Department spokesman Tom Casey said in Washington.

Casey said the mission could be authorized by the Security Council but would not necessarily be a blue-hatted UN force.

''The decisions are yet to come as to whether it wears a blue helmet, whether it wears a NATO flag, whether it wears some other kind of multinational force emblem on it. The thing that it is important is that we get the right troops in place as quickly as possible to do the job,'' Casey said.

Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja said European Union countries ''will be providing the biggest share in any such force in its capabilities and personnel.'' France could end up taking command, said Tuomioja, whose government currently holds the rotating EU presidency. ''But it cannot be purely an EU operation, it has to be a general or multinational force.'' Annan said the meeting would be able to hold only preliminary discussions because the Security Council had not yet set out a mandate for the international force, defining what the troops would be asked to do.

Only after a mandate is approved will countries be able to decide whether they will participate or not, he said.

Major powers have said a force could not be deployed while fighting continued and without the consent of Israel, Lebanon and the Hizbollah organisation.

An international conference in Rome on Wednesday failed to reach agreement on how and when to end the fighting but did agree on the need for an international force with a Security Council mandate to secure the Israeli-Lebanese border and help Lebanon control all its territory once the conflict ended.

REUTERS SRS BST0049