Annan calls emergency UN Council meeting on Lebanon

UNITED NATIONS, July 30 (Reuters) UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan today called an emergency Security Council meeting for to prod the 15-member body into taking action on the Lebanon-Israeli conflict, such as issuing a demand for a cease-fire.

Annan, speaking to two reporters on his way into UN headquarters, said he would brief the council on the Israeli air strike in the Lebanese village of Qana in which 54 people died, and on other developments.

The secretary-general said he hoped council members would realize ''how dangerous the situation is and how it can't escalate and get out of hand and the urgency for them to act.'' Annan said he had always been in favor of an ''unconditional'' cessation of hostilities, which did not preclude the need for a long-term political agreement.

He noted that the Beirut government said it would not engage in any more diplomatic discussions until violence had stopped. He also said he had a ''very good conversation'' with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, now in Israel.

The United States is under increasing pressure from European and Arab allies to call for an early truce, though so far it shows no sign of softening its stand that a cease-fire cannot preserve the status quo.

Both the United States and Israel want to make sure that any solution leads to the removal of Hizbollah from the border and its eventual disarmament under a UN resolution, though it is unclear the guerrilla group would accept the force.

France's UN Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, expressing dismay at the attack on Qana, said ''such an action cannot be justified'' and renewed his government's plea for an immediate end to the fighting.

He called on the Security Council to work on a plan to resolve the overall crisis as well as an immediate response to the attack.

France yesterday distributed a draft resolution for a cessation of hostilities and conditions for a cease-fire, including an international force.

Britain's UN Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said the Israeli air strike ''reinforces the need for the violence to end and to end now.'' He also called on the council to call for an immediate end to fighting as well as a resolution setting out ''the political basis for resolving this crisis on a longer-term basis.'' ''There is no reason why such a resolution should not be introduced in the council very quickly and adopted as a measure of urgency,'' Jones Parry said.

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