France refuses to attend UN forces meeting

PARIS, Aug 2: France said today it will not attend a U N meeting to discuss an international force for southern Lebanon, saying a political agreement on how to end the three-week-old conflict must be worked out first.

France and the United States which fell out over the Iraq war are at odds over how to bring an end to the fighting between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas.

France has been mentioned as a possible leader of such an international force but wants a truce accompanied by agreement on a framework for a permanent ceasefire before troops are sent.

The United Nations, which will host tomorrow's meeting, also wants the fighting to stop before troops are deployed. But the United States would like the force to be deployed sooner.

''We do not want to discuss the international force before a political agreement,'' French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told Le Monde daily newspaper.

''France does not want to fall into a trap that would lead to the existence of a force without a prior political agreement.'' The newspaper also quoted a French diplomat as saying that a ''premature'' meeting would ''reinforce the U S position''.

''We will not send a force to Lebanon to continue the work of the Israeli army,'' the diplomat said.

U N Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Tuesday urged the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China the Security Council members with veto power to lay divisions aside to resolve the crisis as quickly as possible.

In an interview with Le Monde, Jean-Marie Guehenno, the U.N.

undersecretary-general for peacekeeping, said the body should not become the umpire between France and the United States.

''We don't want to be the referee,'' he said.

But he appeared to support the French position.

''For a force to be deployed, the fighting must stop,'' he said. ''It will be much easier to find the troops if the fighting has stopped.'' He said it could be months before a force of 10,000 to 20,000 troops would be ready for deployment.

Reuters